Up until about 2008 the DNR basically would not recognize cougar sightings here in WI. Typically writing them off as misidentifications, etc. Things started to change when they found blood near a sighting and the DNA test came back as cougar. Now the story is these cougars are only passing through from the Black Hills through Minnesota and into and through Wisconsin. As today's story explained some times all the way to Connecticut.
2011 WI Cougar Sightings
http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/er/mammal...tings.htm#2011
Map
http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/er/mammal...ations2010.pdf