Evidence of the Eastern Cougar

Cue the cougar-cams: Ontario places cameras in forests to prove cats exist

By Dave Rogers, The Ottawa Citizen May 4, 2009
OTTAWA — In Ontario, where cougars officially don’t exist, the Ministry of Natural Resources has set up 40 cameras on forest trails throughout the province to try to prove the big cats really live here.

The ministry has placed infrared and digital motion and heat-detecting cameras equipped with flashes on trails where cougars have been spotted or wildlife officials have found cougar tracks, droppings or fur.

Over the next year, the cameras will take still photographs during the day or night of any predator attracted to the smelly mixture of ground-up animal parts placed under the trees where the equipment is located. In Eastern Ontario, several cameras have been located in forests near Kemptville and Pembroke.

In recent years, people have reported seeing cougars near Carlsbad Springs in the rural east end of Ottawa and in Gatineau Park.

The Ontario Puma Foundation says the cougar, also known as the mountain lion, was hunted almost to extinction by the late 1800s. But it believes there are about 550 cougars in the province and that their numbers are increasing.

Rick Rosatte, a senior research biologist in charge of the ministry’s cougar project, said many sightings have proved to be lynx, fishers or even deer.

“We have had more than 500 apparent cougar sightings since 2002,” Rosatte said. “Through investigation we found that people are mistaking animals such as deer, dogs and coyotes for cougars.

“Upon investigation, we will sometimes find fisher tracks. People make these mistakes because the light is low or the animal is in cover. We are trying to find out what percentage of cougar sightings are misidentifications.”

In Oregon, which has about about 5,000 cougars, wildlife officials found that only seven per cent of sightings were correct.

Rosatte said the research project is designed to determine the distribution of cougars across Ontario and whether the animals are native to the province, are escaped captive animals or have arrived from western Canada or the United States. There have been about 380 apparent cougar sightings reported to the ministry between 1935 and 1982. The ministry believes 180 to 190 of the animals were probably cougars.

Researchers have collected 20 pieces of evidence of the elusive animals during the past three years, including droppings, fur and sightings by Ministry of Natural Resources employees.

“There have been a lot of probable sightings near Charleston Lake,” Rosatte said. “But we have no good evidence such as the photograph of a cougar in Eastern Ontario. I am not sure what the ministry would do if we got a picture of a cougar. I guess we would put it in our database as one more piece of evidence.”