Tag: Ontario cougar

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Ontario Cougar Sightings – migration theory bolstered

The ever-elusive cougar is still being spotted across Ontario with regularity and the West-east Migration theory is becoming more probable.

As one of the few outdoor writers in the province who monitors big cat sightings and has reported regularly on the mystery of cougars, I am privy to some cool ‘Cougar Intel’. The often misunderstand mountain lion has evidently taken up residence in Ontario yet many folks still choose to turn a blind eye. The evidence is mounting as we get closer to determining the origin of these intriguing large felines.

Big cat theory

The first physical specimen Ontario had seen since the 1800s was a cougar shot by police in Bracebridge-area back in summer of 2012, which turned out to be an escaped captive animal. This is not to say that the handful of big cat reports I receive each month are ALL domesticated animals, there is evidence to demonstrate that a West-East Migration may be occurring in Ontario.

Evidence:

A cougar killed along a Connecticut highway in 2011, for example, was discovered by an American Wildlife Genetics Laboratory to have a genetic makeup consistent with the Black Hills of South Dakota. This cougar was believed to have traveled more than 1,800 miles in an unfathomable trek eastward. It is my theory(& some others) that many of our Ontario cats could fall into this category.

This map outlines the theory of how this cougar traveled eastward, arriving in Connecticut, based on other sightings. (Thanks to Crytomundo.com for the image)

Second Ontario Cougar Specimen Discovered – 2017

A second cougar was discovered in Ontario, which further bolsters the West-East Migration Theory! This specimen was found frozen in a snowbank on Boreal Road near Thunder Bay on March 25, 2017. Though there was speculation this animal would prove the existence of a resident cougar populations in Ontario, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources & Forestry had tissue samples sent to a DNA Research Station in Montana.

The results:

“The lab determined with 95 per cent probability that the cougar, discovered in Thunder Bay, is related to individuals from the region of the Black Hills of Wyoming, and South Dakota.”

Sound familiar? Black Hills of South Dakota? Is it purely a coincidence that both the cat found in Connecticut in 2011, and the one discovered in Thunder Bay, Ontario, last spring share similar DNA evidence?

Though the Ontario MNRF downplayed the genetic testing results, saying: “People should not “read too much” into the results, as the fact that the animal had genetic markers from South Dakota, doesn’t mean it actually came from there.”   

But  it could mean that too, could it not??

Now there are two cougars as evidence showing DNA markers, found in two different areas far from South Dakota. One in Northwestern Ontario and one in the USA.

There are other indicators of a possible West-east migration. Cougars with radio collars have been captured on trail-cameras in Michigan and parts of the Midwest. After doing some investigation i found that there are NO radio-telemetry programs ongoing in this part of the country. Only cougars in western Canada and the US have been tracked by radio collar. How would a collared animal end-up in Michigan unless it traveled there on its own?

My interest in big cats began 13-years ago when i interviewed a man from Monkland, Ontario, not far from Cornwall, who had been bitten by a ‘large cat’ while letting his dog out. (I was working on a magazine piece) Investigators determined, at the time, that the bite marks were ‘feline’ yet much too large for a domestic cat. Since then, i began following cougar sightings and the reports starting flowing in, from all around.

Last year i featured images in Fish, Hunt & Ride magazine of a man from Southern Ontario who had taken some impressive photographs of what he believed to have been a cougar. I concurred. Big cats have also been captured on trailcams not far from the Nation’s Capital – on a farm in Grenville, QC and by a hunter in Fort Colounge.

In 2016, I received reports of a big cat being spotted crossing the road, a mile from my house east of Ottawa. I quickly set-up a series of trailcams and spent the rest of the summer hoping to catch a glimpse of a big cat. To no avail.

If you should see, what appears to be a cougar in your travels, please report your findings to; [email protected]

One day we will (hopefully) crack the cougar mystery, and until then i will be watching over my shoulder.

The Outdoors Guy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keep your eyes peeled and should you catch a glimpse of a large brown or black cat with a long tail, please contact me: [email protected]

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Cougar sightings continue across Ontario

My August Outdoors Guy column appeared last week in the Pembroke Daily Observer, and received more interest than any other column this summer.

Everyone, it seems, is interested in big cats!

Check it out: http://www.thedailyobserver.ca/2015/08/19/outdoor-columnist-warns-of-the-potential-for-cougar-sightings-right-here-in-the-ottawa-valley

 

The ever-elusive cougar is still being spotted across Ontario with regularity and the Upper Ottawa Valley is no exception.

As one of the few outdoor writers in Canada who monitors big cat sightings and reports regularly on the mystery of cougars in Ontario, I am privy to copious ‘Cougar Intel’ from across the province; including reports of big cats being spotted right here in the Valley. The often misunderstand mountain lion has evidently taken up residence in Ontario yet many folks still choose to turn a blind eye. The evidence is mounting as we get closer to determining the origin of these intriguing large felines.

Big cat theory

The only physical specimen the province has seen since the 1800s was a cougar (sadly) shot by police in Bracebridge area, in summer of 2012, which turned out to be an escaped captive animal. This is not to say that the half dozen or so big cat reports I receive each month are ALL domesticated animals, there is evidence to demonstrate that a West-East Migration may be occurring in Ontario. A cougar killed along a Connecticut highway in 2011, for example, was discovered by an American Wildlife Genetics Laboratory to have a genetic makeup consistent with the Black Hills of South Dakota. This cougar was believed to have travelled more than 1,500 miles in an unfathomable trek eastward. It is my theory that many of our Ontario cats could fall into this category. Keep your eyes peeled and should you catch a glimpse of a large brown or black cat with a long tail, please contact me: [email protected]

Summer drawing to a close

Seasonal changes are upon us folks! Fish species like Northern pike and muskie which spent much of the summer in deep water will slowly emerge in the shallows. Seasonal movement is observed among white-tailed deer as well, with the buck’s antler development all but complete, resident males travel into open fields for the annual ‘meet and greet’. As the pre-season period approaches, these bucks will congregate to compare antlers size and establish the pecking order. Now is one of the best times to observe critters on the move so be on the look out.

2015 Ford Expedition, a beast in civil clothing

This summer when not out chasing cougars, I had the opportunity of road testing a 2015 Ford Expedition Platinum. The Expedition was a formidable beast indeed and the largest SUV I have reviewed to date. This rugged full-size comes with a new turbo V6 under the hood kicking out a more than ample 365 horses and impressive 420 foot-pounds of torque; propelling me soundly (and safely) down Highway 401 towards Niagara Falls. Had I been towing a boat or trailer, the 9,200-pound towing capacity would have completed the task in spades with the best towing capacity I have seen in a Sport Utility Vehicle.

Considering the Expedition’s mammoth footprint it handled more like a Ford Escape, and I had no trouble manoeuvring in and out of traffic. I enjoyed the MyFord Touch screen which covered all important vehicle parameters such as climate, entertainment and navigation. The acceleration, highway cruising speed and comfort level were excellent, and the Platinum trim came nicely appointed with blind spot indicator (BLIS), neat retractable running boards and large eight-inch MyFord Touch screen and moon roof, among other things.

This beast came dressed in civil clothing too as a sharp-looking and admirable ‘sportsmen hauler’ to say the least, available in both seven and eight-passenger with more than enough clout to get any hunter or fisherman safely off the grid. The four-wheel independent suspension had a lot to do with the Expedition’s superior ride quality, quite noteworthy for a nearly 6,000-pound vehicle. Average fuel consumption ranged from approximately 13-15 L/100 km, which isn’t too shabby given the magnitude of this SUV. Enthusiasts in this size-class don’t usually purchase based on fuel sipping capabilities. My time with the 2015 Ford Expedition was enjoyable from start to finish. For more information, check out the Ford of Canada site: http://www.ford.ca/

Next time!

Tune in next time for more exciting news from the back-40 including another informative product field-test report and the official kick-off to moose season.

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Important cougar sighting near Peterborough

Another summer is upon us and the Ontario cougar sightings continue to pour-in.

As many of you know, I’ve always taken a special interest in Ontario cougars a fascination if you will, which is odd since I’m really not a huge (domestic) cat lover.

The intrigue with these big cats I suppose might have to do with the rarity of the occurrence, although more  cougars are being spotted across the province than ever before, so that can’t be it. Heck, we even saw a local horse owner last winter who had a brush with a cougar when one attacked one of her animals.

Yes, cougars in Ontario are contentious issue regardless of where you stand and of interest to many. People see them regularly in different regions yet our wildlife agencies tend to discount any and all reported sightings. Out of fear? Lack of funding? Whatever the case, the MNRF has typically shied away from the Ontario cougar issue even though I receive a handful of cougars reports each and every month.

The letter I got today may change all that!

I received a cougar sighting report earlier this am from the Peterborough-area, which isn’t that strange as several big cats have been spotted in the Kawartha’s in recent years.

This sighting was special indeed and almost ground-breaking I would say…as the eye-witness report came to me from a Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) employee!

Alex Broks, a Land and Resources Data Support Officer with the Mapping & Information Resources Branch of the MNRF in Peterborough, was driving on Mervin Road south of Hwy 115 yesterday at approximately 4:00 PM, when noticed a doe and a fawn cross the road 40 yards away.

Following on their footsteps at a close distance was a  large cat with a long tail, it was unmistakably a cougar but not an adult in Broks’s estimation – a man who is an  avid sportsman with 35 years’ experience.

“I do know that there has been other sighting in the past few years in the Peterborough- area” Broks explained, but the MNRF always seems to contradict the sightings; too far, to foggy, maybe a slim coyote, no one else has reported anything and so on.”

This MNRF employee and former Taxidermist went online shortly after the sighting to see if any other cougars have been reported in the Peterborough area. Alex quickly discovered one of my articles on the subject and contacted me and here we are…

This first-hand cougar sighting is important, not only to further the documented evidence of big cats in the Province, but for an MNRF employee to come forward with an eye-witness account lends great credibility to the existence of these big cats in Ontario.

A tip of the hat to Alex Broks for allowing me to share this crucial information with us, without fear of reprisal. Alex told me he plans to speak with the only home-owner along that stretch of road to see if they too have seen any cougar activity in the area.

Stay tuned…

Outdoorsguy

P.S. For more information on Cougars in Ontario, the Province’s authority on big cats Rick Rosatte has published several papers on the subject: http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB0QFjAAahUKEwiQ4snx0KHHAhWXEpIKHVJnDDA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcanadianfieldnaturalist.ca%2Findex.php%2Fcfn%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F11942F1187&ei=OTvKVdDhH5elyATSzrGAAw&usg=AFQjCNFgjoCbDQ63RjepRoROXo1xXk4fqg&sig2=1uDoN8zDxms6zMkta_Jqng

 

 

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Cougar sightings in Ontario on the rise

As we move our way through another new year, the elusive cougar crawls its way through the province of Ontario, and the number of sightings continues to rise.

With few resources at our disposal and a wildlife agency whom all but refuses to admit the existence of big cats in this province, what are we to do with all this cougar data?

A quick glance at the Ontario Puma Foundation’s map entitled; Puma Sightings in Ontario, paints a clear picture that cougars/pumas have, at time, been spotted in almost every corner of the province!

To give you an idea of the magnitude, here are the cougar sighting reports I have personally received in the last 4 weeks alone:

I was driving back to Ottawa from the cottage on Hwy 12 near Perth after the first winter storm of 2015 & big snowfall, a large all black cat that was thick and muscular darted across the road. Never seen anything like it in 40 years.

A few weeks back in the middle of December along the Thames River just East of London we were almost at my daughters house that backs along the banks of the Thames River .. This large animal came up from the river , went across the road into a field . I have never seen anything like it before and I’ve lived here for many years. It reminded me of our large yellow lab but a whole lot bigger and ran lean and long ..I said to my daughter, that’s a Cougar! Then I come to find out that just west of us along the river area of the golf course there were some officers checking out a shredded deer carcass and paw prints . There was someone else or others that seen the same cougar and the police were checking it out. I’ve searched for anything online that I can find but nothing pops up about the recent London sighting ?  I called the MNR but never received a call back .. There are plenty of deer in our area that could support a cougar but I also hear they do not stay put for long?

A friend of mine got 3 pictures on his trail cam of a cougar, I will get those pictures and post them, the cougar was near his backyard, he lives just outside Brentwood which is located just NW of Angus and close to the Minnising swamp. The pics are quite clear, in color and in the daytime.

Spotted what I am sure was a cougar in Mallorytown Ontario this past June 2014. I couldn’t believe it. It was probably a bit smaller than my 100pound dog, was dark coloured, and had a long tail, and was creeping away from our back compost pile at dawn. We have a lot of coyotes here, so I first thought it was a coyote. But the tail/face/ears/movement were not coyote. Tried to get back inside to grab the camera, but the cat had moved back into the wooded area that borders our property. No sign since.

Bought a camp on L. Superior on Whitefish Bay about 4 yrs ago. Came from the interior of B.C. (near Kamloops) and have lived in Alta and B.C. most of my life. Had 2 camps in the wilderness of B.C. where I hunted and fished – seeing cougars on occasion so I know what they are vs Lynx etc. 2 yrs ago a cougar ripped across the front of our L. Superior camp running close to the water. Love the way these guys use that long tail to balance themselves on the run.

Two sightings in the Glanbrook area of southern Ontario. The most recent was this week which has me researching but I will start with the first in early spring 1987. We bought the house 2 months earlier. Having breakfast one morning, I saw a very large black cat straight back behind our property which opens to a field and woods to the immediate right. My husband and I watched it trying to figure out what it was -tall, black with a long drooping tail near to the ground and tipping upwards. Nothing like a dog. It moved like a cat and was much larger than a dog. We were sure it was a wild black cat of some sort and called a local private zoo to see if they lost a cat – puma, jaguar or whatever. They said no but asked where we live (?) A few hours later we went out to the woods and as the ground was soft from recent melting we looked for tracks and found them. I took photographs and placed my hand in the paw print bending my fingers inwards at the middle knuckles was the size of the print. There were no claw marks as there would be if it was a black coyote and way too big. We then thought it wise to get out of there as it could be in the trees. A few weeks later we met our neighbours for the first time who told us about an odd sighting of a row of about 10 people, dressed in white going across the field looking downwards. The very next day after we saw the cat!
Some 20 years later i was talking to colleagues about it when one of them said hey…when was that? I answered that it was years ago….she said she lived with her parents about 2km from us in Haldimand and in the spring of 1987 they saw a large black cat! We assume it escaped from somewhere.

Fast forward to this week. My son is down for the holidays and just before noon on Dec 23 he saw a very large beige cat come down the side of our property along the treeline, hugging the ground. We had a large blonde lab and he estimated it about that size but hard to tell as it slunk so low. He said it was beige, black around the ears, not a house cat type of face, long tail that had blackish rings starting about half way up. It came all the way up…disappeared at the back of the pool and he doesn’t know where it went. He said it was muscular, very short hair. Unfortunately he didn’t get a picture. So looking online I thought for sure it must be a bobcat. He says no way – doesn’t match at all – not the face and the tail was way longer and thinner..not furry. I found that young cougars have stripped black tails. I convinced myself last night it was a bobcat until my son got up today and said no way…not what he saw…no matter how many images i showed him of ages and species that could be in our area. No idea what he saw but I would love to know! (btw..our lab was 80-90 pounds in terms of my son’s estimation of size) (My son has perfect eye sight at 22 yrs old lol and the cat was seen from 200 feet walking towards him/the house – so he got a good look)

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Another summer of Ontario cougar sightings!

Last summer you may recall my interview with Shawn Heggert; a man who lives in a small town southeast of Ottawa. Shawn is an avid outdoorsman – hunter and fisherman – like many of us are, and is always watching the fields and forests near his house for signs of wildlife.

While driving his vehicle near Mountain last summer, something peculiar caught his attention.

A large brown ‘cat’ with a long tail was running along the roadside in front of him. It was a cougar and Shawn knows wildlife well enough to realize what one looks like.

“I wasn’t hard to tell this guy was a cougar, I mean, he was only 30 yards away and it was  broad daylight!” said Heggert.

Upon returning home, Shawn got on the Internet and began searching Ontario Cougars, which led him to one my articles in the Ottawa SUN from Summer, 2012, with the story of the cougar shot by Police in the Muskoka’s.

Since I interviewed Shawn about his cougar sighting last summer, copious other sightings have flowed, like sap in springtime, to my email Inbox . I have received, on average, 1 cougar sighting per month over the past two years and from all over the place.

There must be something to it is all I have to say! Could it be that all these sightings are from ‘pets’ or ‘formerly captive’ cougars?

Sure, the one killed by police two summers ago in the Muskoka’s had evidently been a captive animal (it had been declawed) but there are far too many sightings, across the province each year to ALL be escaped pets.

It seems no one wants to believe that a remnant population of the (now believe to be) extinct Eastern Cougar might exist in Eastern Canada, yet the sightings continue to grow in numbers. Or perhaps the other theory of an west-east expansion is more plausible? (This is the one I subscribe to)

At any rate, the number of cougar sightings continues to grow and expand into areas of the province beyond the current central & eastern Ontario cougar hotspots.

I mean, I’ve heard of cougars (4-legged) being spotted within ear-shot of downtown Toronto!!

It will be interesting to see what transpires with this one the MNR are actively trying to live trap in Peterborough.(Story by Pete Fisher of the Peterborough Examiner) To my knowledge, this is one of the first efforts the Ministry has made to live trap a cougar. (Not even sure that live trapping was attempted in case of Bracebridge cougar killed by police)

Many of the folks who’ve contacted me since 2012 stated that they got in-touch with their MNR office and were told, flat out, that cougars DO NOT exist in the province.

This live-trapping effort in Peterborough suggests that our MNR now admits, in this case anyway, that we may have some large cats roaming the province of Ontario after all.

Seen a cougar? Drop me a line anytime! I don’t own a culvert trap, but I’m willing to listen intently with an open mind!

([email protected])

Outdoorsguy

Note: Since I know Pete Fisher of the Peterborough Examiner, I contacted him yesterday about this story; which falls close to his backyard. He is providing me with updates…