Mountain Lion Kittens Captured On Camera In Oklahoma

A little new Oklahoma history is being made right now in Northern OK. Mountain lions have long been a hotly debated topic in the Sooner State, whether they're really here or not.

The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation has made it their mission to deny cougars come through Oklahoma, gaslighting anyone who shares their stories of seeing one, all the while still asking people to report sightings. It's a weird method of operation.

As technology has gotten better and more mobile - ei, cell phones, trail cameras, infrared technology, etc - the ODWC finally had to eat their crow about 25 years ago. They admitted that mountain lions "occasionally stray into Oklahoma" but still insisted our Sooner State wasn't part of their natural territory. That the few confirmed sightings were most likely transient animals and that the state wasn't part of any home range.

This news flips the script on that notion. 

Documented for the first time, the ODWC has confirmed mountain lion kittens have been captured on camera in Osage County.

The pics were snapped in October of last year. Why it took eight months to acknowledge it is odd, but hey, that's government efficiency for you.

Curiously enough, a second group of cougar kits was confirmed way out in Cimarron County in December too.

What does it mean? 

The fact may be that this blows a hole in the narrative that mountain lions are only transient through Oklahoma. Rather, these breeding females have established their territory, or a portion of it, in the Sooner State.

How so? Because all of the research, mainly from other states with higher cougar populations, has documented that females will stay within their established territory to raise a litter. Just as we go home at the end of the day, home is a safe space of comfort and familiarity.

As you'd expect, as time goes on, with this new information, more examples will slowly start changing the information provided on the government mountain lion webpage.