Latest sighting on Eva Lake Turnaround Road
Jessica Smith
Do cougars prowl in the wilderness areas surrounding Atikokan?
Their presence has been confirmed in the region and throughout Ontario, yet despite several reported sightings here in recent weeks there has yet to be any hard evidence here, said Atikokan MNR biologist Brian Jackson. Considering a four-year Ministry study has recently confirmed through DNA evidence the presence of the animals in the Kenora area however, it would seem probable that at least some of those four sightings south and east of town are accurate.
Actually, sightings have been reported here for nearly around a decade. Yet until the animal is clearly photographed or DNA evidence is found here, such accounts will still be viewed with some skepticism by MNR and locals alike – something I discovered after my own sighting.
Driving up the back road off Highway 633 a few weeks ago, my family and I saw what at first appeared to be a lynx, sitting right at the corner of the Eva Lake Turnaround Road . The fact that the animal was so uncharacteristically bold, sitting on the road a stone’s throw from the truck, prompted us to back up for a closer look to see if the animal was injured or ill. As we got closer, it became clear that it wasn’t grey but reddish brown and as it got up and ran down the road, something else was obvious: the tail was not a short nub, but rather long, thick and nearly touching the ground as it ran.
Our ‘aha’ moment occurred when it ran just off the road and stopped to look at the truck. The feline face was large and the ears rounded – not pointed with tufts, like a lynx. Growing up on a trap line, I have seen most animals native to the area, and I’m pretty sure of what I saw: it was a cougar.
While I have encountered some polite suggestion that it was a case of mistaken identity, many with whom I have shared my account claim to also either have seen one in the Atikokan area or heard of someone who had. That doesn’t surprise Jackson, who has been hearing accounts of sightings for close to a decade, and the variety of accounts indicate that both responses are fair reactions to my story.
“We’ve never had a real, hard, verified report. We had one guy who said he saw a cougar jump across the road and we went out and checked and in the track marks, yes, that’s what it looks like. We’ve never had anyone give us a picture. We have had a whole mix of stuff: some people are out in the bush all the time and say they have never seen one and then at the opposite end of the spectrum, we have people tell us they see one every week,” he said.
However, thanks to the recent work to establish the cougar’s existence in Ontario, those who say they have seen a cougar no longer have to feel as though they are lumped in with those who have witnessed Sasquatch encounters and alien abductions. The question is no longer whether cougar exist here, but rather whether a cougar is in fact what you saw.
While some Atikokan accounts over the years appear quite probable, others have turned out to be in actuality wolves, coyotes, lynx and even house cats, said Jackson. He said many are sure of what they think they saw, the power of suggestion can be a strong influence when a person sees something they don’t immediately recognize. The MNR has even received supposed cougar photos of drenched wolves whose long, wet tails bore a resemblance to that of a cougar, he said.
“What would be most valuable is if we could get hair or even fresh scat so [the ministry] could do the DNA analysis.”
Just ended last month, the MNR study included collection of 30 pieces of evidence across the province, including photos of tracks, and samples of scat and DNA since 2006. The most recent confirmed sightings were near Kenora, Sault Ste Marie and Lindsay between March and September of 2009. As part of the effort, the ministry set up 30 motion-sensor cameras (equipped with a cougar attractant) across the province in locations where cougars have been sighted. Two were placed in the Atikokan area where past sightings have occurred and will remain up until March, 2011, after which time the study’s findings will be published.
Despite these efforts however, the animal has yet to be photographed anywhere in the province. That may hardly be surprising, given that the animal covers a huge territory (between 500-1,000 square kms) and can travel up to 50 kms in one night; therefore may not return to the particular area where it was once spotted.
Sightings here in recent weeks may be the result of a single cougar “that could be wandering around, and often that’s what happens. Sometimes we get a whole rash of reports in a certain area and then we don’t get them from that area again,” said Jackson.
The cougar, also known as a puma, mountain lion, and eastern panther has a long body (males reach two metres in length and weigh over 100 kg and females are slightly smaller), long thick tail, rounded ears, reddish or brown coloured body and white underside. Their preferred food is deer, but they will also hunt for beaver, porcupine and other small mammals. According to the Ontario Puma Foundation, there are believed to be around 550 in the province.
Jackson said there are three possible origins of the cougar in this area: escaped or released pets, western cougars roaming into the area from the Dakotas, or the least likely scenario, a remnant eastern cougar population that was hunted to near extinction in Ontario in the 1800s (that species has been designated as endangered in the province and there have been no confirmed sightings since the 1800s).
Former pet cougars could plausibly find their way into this region because of our proximity to Minnesota where the cost of a cougar kit (baby) is similar to that of a purebred puppy. There, pets that have escaped or been released by their owners have been shot when they approached humans looking for food, and their tame nature was mistaken for aggressiveness, said Jackson.
The possibility of western cougars ranging from as far away as South Dakota may seem unlikely, but it is possible, he said. “It really isn’t too far from the Dakotas where there are wild cougars. We know there is a population there. Especially adult males of many species tend to wander a long ways. There have been lynx collared south of Quetico Park in the States who ended up getting trapped in Terrace Bay. If you [compare that range] it’s almost the distance from South Dakota to northwestern Ontario.”
So what to do if you think you see a cougar?
“If you think you see something, take a picture. If you see tracks, mark them with flagging tape or something and let us know as soon as possible [before conditions erode the quality of the print]. Especially in the winter, if you can get on the tracks and follow it you might find scat or if they go by trees and lose a tuft of hair… Stuff like that is really valuable. If we start getting the DNA [evidence] we can get better information on where those animals are coming from.”
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