Man claims he saw cougar kill a deer on rural property

Has the cougar spotted last year in the Ann Arbor area moved his hunting grounds north into Livingston County?

A Howell area man told the Livingston County Press and Argus that he saw a cougar perform a vicious takedown of a deer on his property near Pardee Lake Sunday morning. Mike Casciani doesn't have any photographic evidence of the cougar on the hunt, the newspaper reported. Casciani told the paper he heard a lot of commotion near the back of his Genoa Township property and watched as the cougar attacked the deer and dragged it off into the woods.

The Department of Natural Resources has been notified, but is not investigating the matter due to the lack of evidence, the report said.

Possible cougar sightings were reported in the Ann Arbor area in 2012, including one on the University of Michigan's North Campus in March 2012. There is low probability of a cougar making its way into southeastern Michigan, according to the DNR. It’s possible that cougars can be confused with bobcats, coyotes and even large house cats when seen from far away, a DNR official told AnnArbor.com in a previous report.

Read the Livingston Daily article.

John Counts covers cops and courts for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at johncounts@annarbor.com or you can follow him on Twitter.