After years of debate about whether cougars exist in Kansas, the Kansas Biological Survey on Tuesday released DNA analysis results of a feces sample from KU’s West Campus area.

“The verdict? It’s a cougar,” Mark Jakubauskas, research assistant professor for the Kansas Applied Remote Sensing Program with the Kansas Biological Survey, wrote in an e-mail Tuesday afternoon.

More stories on mountain lions in the area

In September, Jakubauskas set up a camera in a field near West Campus after receiving reports of a cougar roaming that area. The camera captured a fuzzy picture Oct. 1 of what some believed was a mountain lion. Mountain lions are also known as cougars, pumas or panthers and are members of the large cat family.

“It still doesn’t prove that the blob in the picture was a cougar, but it sure lends weight to it,” Jakubauskas said Tuesday afternoon.

The test result is the first scientific proof of a cougar in the area. The Applied Technology in Conservation Genetics Lab in the Department of Biology at Central Michigan University analyzed DNA from the sample. Jakubauskas found the sample in the area where the picture was taken in early October.