DNR confirms cougar seen in Brookfield

A cougar has made its way into the Milwaukee suburbs, with the last sighting in Brookfield on Saturday night.

Brookfield police said Sunday a resident of the suburb's northeast side contacted them Saturday about 5:45 p.m. when she saw a cougar under a pine tree in her backyard in the 4600 block of Raven Court. Officers responded and confirmed it was a cougar.

UPDATE: Cougar makes its way right up to Brookfield home and looks in the window

The animal appeared to be very passive and may have been injured or hit by a car, police said. Officers couldn't neutralize the cougar or use a dart gun because of its proximity to homes and thick brush surrounding it, police said.

Agents from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources were called, and they also confirmed it was a cougar. Police said after conferring with the DNR employees, they agreed the DNR would return Sunday morning and "attempt to deal with it." Neighbors in the immediate area were told about the situation, police said.

But Sunday morning, the cougar, which was estimated to be 1½ years old and weigh about 100 pounds, was gone. The DNR tracked the cougar in a southeastern direction but lost the trail in the area of N. 135th and Hope streets.

Brookfield Police Officer Andrew Stockland said Sunday evening there had been no calls about the cougar during the day Sunday.

“It was on the east side of Brookfield and heading toward either Wauwatosa or Butler,” Brookfield Mayor Steven Ponto said.

Asked whether pet owners should be concerned, Ponto said, "Frankly, I would certainly be careful in the area in which it was spotted.”

It was at least the second sighting of a cougar in less than two weeks in the metro Milwaukee area. A cougar was videotaped Feb. 7 walking outside a home in Colgate in Washington County, according to the DNR.

That cougar was likely the same animal verified in a Jan. 5 trail camera image from Rosendale in Fond du Lac County, according to the DNR. It was unknown Sunday whether the cougar that appeared in Brookfield was the same one.

In the Colgate sighting, the cougar probably was a dispersing male. There is no evidence of a breeding population of cougars in Wisconsin, the DNR has said.

RELATED: Cougar confirmed from Feb. 7 video in Washington County

The nearest established cougar population is in the Black Hills area of South Dakota. Genetic analysis of animals dispersing through Wisconsin have been linked to that population, according to the DNR.

Cougars are a protected species in Wisconsin. They can be killed only if they pose a threat to livestock or human safety. No human has been attacked by a cougar in Wisconsin in modern history, according to DNR records.

This story has been updated to reflect new information. The cougar originally was estimated by authorities to weigh 50 pounds.