TOIVOLA, Mich. (WJMN) — Trail camera footage posted online by an Upper Peninsula college student of a cougar attacking a deer has gone viral, attracting attention from scientists and people across the country.

Eli Schaefer is a 24-year-old student at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, but when he’s not studying towards his degree in geospatial engineering he can sometimes be found hunting in the woods about 30 minutes south of campus.

Schaefer posted the video to his Facebook page on Jan. 7, and it didn’t take too long for a lot more people to see it. As of this writing his posting of the video alone has nearly 800 shares.

The video shows a mountain lion mid-attack with its jaws around the neck of a deer. In seconds, the deer stops moving and the big cat is seen dragging its prey off the right side of the screen.

While awe-inducing to see, Schaefer says it may also be valuable for scientists studying the animal. “A lady messaged me to who of studies them in Utah, and she said she’s seen everything before, like a mom having kittens, eating their food, you know, a bunch of stuff.”

“She said the only thing she’s never gotten was seeing a cougar take down prey,” Schaefer said. “She called it the ‘money shot.’”

Schaefer told us a DNR employee has reached out to him to confirm the sighting, which will include him showing an officer where the trail camera was placed.

While it was the first video of a cougar Schaefer has captured, it wasn’t the first time he has seen evidence of a cougar around there. He recently caught a still image of a big cat on one of his trail cams in October, and found what he said was evidence of a kill in the same area back in 2021.

“I was driving up to the stand that had the video at it and I saw a little bloodshed across the road, drag marks,” Schaefer said. “So my first thought was, you know, ‘someone shot a deer and they were dragging it to their truck.’ Then I was looking more and ended up seeing large cat tracks. So I actually have a photo of it compared to my hand.”

He said what he saw in the video is what he thinks created the scene he saw that day in 2021. “There was a little matted-down area like there was a struggle, big cat tracks, drag marks with a little bit of blood.”

He was able to follow the trail about two miles until he found the deer buried, which he said is typical for a cat to do.

We asked him if watching the video makes him nervous about returning to that location. “Oh, yeah, definitely,” Schaefer said. “Especially when I first saw the first video. I was like, ‘oh, my God, I was standing right there. That cougar could have just as easily jumped on me when I was checking a camera.’”

DNR info on cougars in Michigan

The Department of Natural Resources has confirmed 52 cougar sightings in the state since 2008, and five in Houghton County—though three of those occurred in 2011.

“[Cougar sightings are] not unique to Michigan,” reads a portion of the DNR’s website, “but has been occurring in many other mid-western and eastern states, as young males disperse from core range in the western United States.”

According to the DNR, Michigan used to have a native cougar population until they were extirpated around 1900. Now the cougars are believed to be either released pets or roaming young males from breeding populations in the Dakotas.

The odds of encountering a cougar are small and an attack is even less likely, according to the DNR. If you do encounter a cougar, the department advises you to:

• face the animal and stand tall
• talk in a loud voice
• never turn or run
• do not play dead

You can report cougar sightings online. If you have physical evidence like a carcass or scat, they ask you to contact your local DNR customer service center.