need some advice on seeing a big cat while going south on hyw 400

We had a Bob Cat living in the woods near the Oshawa Skeet and Gun Club a couple of years ago. Use to see it run across the skeet fields and sporting clays quite often. There were a lot of rabbits then.
 
What you saw was a Cougar. There have been several sightings in the Oro/Midhurst ( 5 min north of Barrie) area over the last few years. A horse was killed in Oro a few years back, a cougar jumped out of a tree onto its back and crushed the back of its neck. If I recall the MNR said it was coyotes.. :onCrack:
A friend saw one 6 times while combining last year. I don't think there are plenty in the area, but they are definitely there.
 
My dog treed a bobcat a month or so ago. Cool looking cat but in the tree it was easy to see their size, My 85pound German Sherpard was easily more than twice as heavy. There's a big difference in size compared to a cougar. I'm sure the big cats roam Ontario. And I'm sure they must be hard to find unless you've got dogs to hunt them.
 
Cougars have long, thick tails. Other wild cats in Canada do not.

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these would be Eastern Cougers right??? I have heard that they are quite a bit smaller than the ones out west....could be wrong though.

There where sightings in the Linwood are (Northest of Kitchener/Waterloo) this summer by a few Old Order Menoite men and one I personally know thru work saw one and the tracks and said it was like nothing he had ever seen before. He is an avid deer and coyote hunter and doing so for over 40 years in the area. Another menonite man in the area was waken one Sunday evening in June to his heard of cattle pushing as hard as the could against the fence by the barn to the point that theyw here breaking posts and pulling out the fasterners down further along the fence. Says he ran out with a light and could clearly see a set of eye's in the field that reflected like a mirror...not like those of a dogs or coyote's! He also said that he has seen coyotes come thru the fields with his cattle and the cattle deffinatly shy from them but deffinatly don't get spoked, let alone try to jump thru fences!

I deffinatly believe everything these guys say as they are the most honest people I know!

Ryan
 
My grandpa said he saw one in Bradford Ont. in the fifties. I have only seen cat tracks. Never seen a wild cat in my life out in the bush.
 
First off, Gatehouse, quit humpin the cougar :D
Second the "opossum on crack" looks more like Opossum with rabies.
 
With the amount of trail cams in the woods these days it should not be too long befor somone gets a photo of one of these Cats. If they aree indeed in Ontario they should be showing up on somones camera befor long.
 
thegreatnorthernhunter said:
most likely not, my understanding is that if it is not on the wildlife act for your province or territory it is protected.
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If youre a rancher, you can shoot what ever wild animal is threatening youre live stock. The MNR may not want farmers to know this info....

The MNR is slow in giving out compensation cheques without proof of the culprit responsible.

Im sure a few wildcats have been layed to rest discretely since the 1900,s.;)
 
Adrian J Hare said:
The last cougar shot in the province was found south of Collingwood in 1884.

was Creemore ;)
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I know the area well. I swear I was followed by one a couple of years ago when pulling my deer out of the woods. A neighbour said she saw one while turkey hunting and there have been other reports of sightings in the area.
 
About 15 years ago my uncle around Woodford Ontario (East of Owen Sound), saw what HAD to be a cougar jump down a snowbank onto the road. As soon as his headlights lit it, it turned to look at his truck and he could see some small animal in it's mouth, it never really stopped he says it just lept up the snowbank on the other side and was gone. He said it had a long tail almost as long as it's body and that would mean it would have to be a cougar.

I remember around the early 80s the Wiarton Echo would occasionally do a story about cougar tracks found around Wiarton. Plaster casts where made and I remember my parents mentioning that the article said it would have been from a very large cougar.
 
There have been sporatic sightings of cougars in our area, North Perth, over the last 20 years. My son and a friend spotted one while snowmobiling one night, no bobcat as it had a long tail. Several other sightings, some by experianced hunters ,who I personally know cannot be dismissed out of hand. One guy was bow hunting in his stand and just as it was getting dusk something let out, as he he described it ,the most God awfulist scream, and scared the bejesus out of him.
 
Cougars in Ontario?

Definitely.

Ten or eleven years ago, during one week bush moose camp 150 km. NNW of Thunder Bay saw one cross the road in our headlights going back to camp in evening, seen by three of us.

The MNR of Ontario has acknowledged that they are here, but certainly not common as it takes a large territory to support them and they can cover a lot of ground.

Given that deer are thriving in most of Ontario south of #11 Hwy, logic suggests that cougar will prey on them. Elk are now showing up in and around Algonquin Park. Moose are available in most of the near north of Ontario. And animals do not "respect" provincial boundaries as evidenced by the flocks of turkeys showing up in the Pontiac region of Quebec. While Quebec says that the deer in the Pontiac are not as numerous as they could/should be, anyone driving, day or night, 52 weeks of the year from Ottawa north must be continually vigilant to avoid a catastrophe and not just for the deer.

And the animal seen by the thread starter certainly appears to have been a cougar.

We will be hearing more of the magnificent cats in the future.
 
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