CALEDONIA, Wis. (AP) -- An animal wiped out in most of the eastern U.S. a century ago is showing up again in Wisconsin.

Cougars, also known as mountain lions, roamed the state before being eliminated by hunting and loss of habitat as land was cleared for agriculture in the late 1800s.

Now they've been migrating from an established population in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Game managers receive scores of reports of sightings each year and have to weed out the ones where bobcats or other animals are mistaken for cougars.

So far, just two cougars have been confirmed. One showed up in Rock County early last year and traveled to Chicago where police shot it to death in an alley three months later.

Bear hunters treed the other cougar near Spooner in Barron County last month. It was photographed before an attempt to tranquilize it and attach a tracking collar failed, and the animal ran off.

Experts say the migrating cats are young males forced out of the Black Hills population.

But they expect the state eventually will have a breeding population of cougars.