Ontario Cougars!

ice2152 said:
I saw a news broadcast in the last 5-10 years with video of a cougar in the orangeville area. Heavily populated area of southern ontario. I believe it was the VR news. I live in this region. Lots of open farm land with corridors of bush. Lots of deer and turkey in the bush. The video was shot by one of the locals in his back lot bush.
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There are literally hundreds of sightings reported... for years the ministry denied existance... but they are here whether folks believe it or not....

The argument that there are less reported sightings in cougar country is irrelevent... why would you report a cougar sighting when you live in cougar country?... I see on average probably 30 turkey a day... should I report that also?....

I think the issue at hand for credibility of cougar existance here is the fact that many folks seem to want to garner attention from saying they saw a cat when they have not.... the overwhelming amount of false claims muddys the ones that are actually true or, at the very least, sincere.....
 
trebor2880 said:
With all the sightings of live cougars in Ontario,

one would think that there would be at least one sighting,

of a dead one!
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Much easier to see something alive vs. something dead... especially if they are rare to find alive in the first place...

How many live deer do you see every year vs. how many deer do you find dead each year?....
 
Ardent said:
Seems I've really stung you with some note there. We're talking about the entire province of Ontario, I may be from the West and have spent very little time in Ontario, but I do understand Ontario is huge and has a ton of hunters. Even in Louisiana, where there are very very few Cougars, they get them on trail cams. But somehow Ontario Cougars are more elusive than all other populations. How many pics do we see out here of people running into Cougars? A reasonable few actually, one was even in the Calgary Herald of a Cougar near town. The pics happen here, they don't there, I'd expect with even the fifteen or so guys in this thread claiming sightings one would have had a camera. And the guys claiming here are the tip of the iceberg, there would be thousands of claimed sightings province wide and not one photo- not even a tawny smudge at 800 yards.

What makes quite a few of us in this thread skeptical is the number of people saying "Seen em twice", "Ran in front of my truck ten feet away", "Saw one in Bancroft" etc when folks in genuine, well populated Cougar country aren't seeing them for years. How about when the MNR invests in a trail cam, I'll jump on board? They seem to have them coming into their bait sights but took zero photos. I've said over and over I believe they're there in extremely low numbers, I have an extremely hard time believing more are seen in Ontario than Cougar country.
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What you fail to realize, perhaps because you dont know Ontario very well by your own admission is that alot of the Cougar sigthings are in Southern Ontario in areas between Brant and Cayuga and back towards the RBG Dundas area. This area isnt hunted in a big way.

If you go to the Ontario Puma foundation website it charts both recent and historical Cougar sightings in this part of Ontario. Clearly there is a small population here, there is so many deer that it would easily support some predators, as well I am sure they are eating peoples dogs and cats in areas that are close to fairly urban centres.

There is nothing about the climate or region that would preclude it from being an area Cougars would live in. In fact I believe the Eastern Cougar is actually indigenous to this area in the past.
 
trebor2880 said:
I see many more dead deer, ....on the highway.
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I drive the highway every business day... one hour worth of it... I see maybe 10-15 dead deer a year vs. hundreds out in the fields....

Also, I would submit that cougars are much smarter than deer and even where they are in abundance, you don't find them dead along the highway often... we even have people on this forum saying that cougar sightings are rare in cougar country... are you disputing them?....
 
Superbrad said:
I drive the highway every business day... one hour worth of it... I see maybe 10-15 dead deer a year vs. hundreds out in the fields....

Also, I would submit that cougars are much smarter than deer and even where they are in abundance, you don't find them dead along the highway often... we even have people on this forum saying that cougar sightings are rare in cougar country... are you disputing them?....
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So then, you are admitting that Ontario is non-cougar country.:D
 
I feel blessed because my betterhalf and I have seen 3 cougars. 2 cougars on Vancouver Island and 1 near Quesnel chasing a doe BC. Scary part is walking out of the bush through fresh snow and heading back in the next morning deer hunting and finding a pair of fresh cougar as in 2 animals tracks following your tracks out of the bush AB. Whole new outlook after that. Also un-nerving is the baby like cry a cougar lets out in the dark. Don't sleep well in a tent after hearing that, who am I kidding you don't sleep at all. Next morning packed up and left. I wanta be the hunter!! Not the hunted.
 
tigrr said:
I feel blessed because my betterhalf and I have seen 3 cougars. 2 cougars on Vancouver Island and 1 near Quesnel chasing a doe BC. Scary part is walking out of the bush through fresh snow and heading back in the next morning deer hunting and finding a pair of fresh cougar as in 2 animals tracks following your tracks out of the bush AB. Whole new outlook after that. Also un-nerving is the baby like cry a cougar lets out in the dark. Don't sleep well in a tent after hearing that, who am I kidding you don't sleep at all. Next morning packed up and left. I wanta be the hunter!! Not the hunted.
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I think it is worse than a baby like cry.
I was alone in a cabin in the late evening with my dog, when a cougar let looose with that blood curdling yell. The dog got up off the floor and crowded up against me! And he was an airedale, a tough, adventuresome dog.
 
A couple of years ago while passing by the public boat lunch North of the Kennisis Lake (Algonquin Park area) I noticed that MNR had added a picture of a Cougar to their warning sign which was advising people how to avoid predators. A year before, it only had a picture of a black bear.
 
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Home3 said:
Having said that, a couple of years ago while passing by the public boat lunch North of the Kennisis Lake (Algonquin Park area) I noticed that MNR had added a picture of a Cougar to their warning sign which was advising people how to avoid predators. A year before, it only had a picture of a black bear.
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Are they trying to put some excitement into Ontario camping?:D
 
I've seen 2 in all my years of hunting and neither one was while I was actually hunting. One was on the side of #7 just outside Kaladar in March during a freezing rain storm. It was very clear and was absolutely a cougar. The other one was on the 9th line of Smith, between Lakefield and Bridgenorth. Late summer and just a quick glimpse of what I was convinced was a cougar. Last winter I was talking to another guy I know who hunts that area and he claims to have seen it cross the 8th line twice. I know the guy well enough to trust him and believe him too.
 
tactical870 said:
I've seen 2 in all my years of hunting and neither one was while I was actually hunting. One was on the side of #7 just outside Kaladar in March during a freezing rain storm. It was very clear and was absolutely a cougar. The other one was on the 9th line of Smith, between Lakefield and Bridgenorth. Late summer and just a quick glimpse of what I was convinced was a cougar. Last winter I was talking to another guy I know who hunts that area and he claims to have seen it cross the 8th line twice. I know the guy well enough to trust him and believe him too.
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What the hell are you talking about?.... Don't you carry a camera around with you all the time like all the naysayers do?..... and didn't the cougar hang around and pose for pictures like they always do?..... geeze.....:stirthepot2:
 
I know of a family who owns an acreage in interior B.C. It is (was) a hippie type of community where kids used to run wild in the woods ..... that is until someone found a dead cougar cub right on the main walking trail! Nobody had seen a cougar there as long as they could remember but apparently, they had been around all that time without being noticed. I don't know much about cougars, but if they can be this illusive, then it is conceivable that a small number could go unnoticed or not photographed for sometime.
 
Home3 said:
I know of a family who owns an acreage in interior B.C. It is (was) a hippie type of community where kids used to run wild in the woods ..... that is until someone found a dead cougar cub right on the main walking trail! Nobody had seen a cougar there as long as they could remember but apparently, they had been around all that time without being noticed. I don't know much about cougars, but if they can be this illusive, then it is conceivable that a small number could go unnoticed or not photographed for sometime.
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Hey, most of west Kootenay is good cougar country! They just can be so illusive. But not always.
Our grandson and his gf were fishing in a very small lake, using a little boat, when a cougar appeared on the grassy shoreline in plain view, less than a hundred yards away, walking along to wherever it was that it was going.
 
ice2152 said:
I saw a news broadcast in the last 5-10 years with video of a cougar in the orangeville area. Heavily populated area of southern ontario. I believe it was the VR news. I live in this region. Lots of open farm land with corridors of bush. Lots of deer and turkey in the bush. The video was shot by one of the locals in his back lot bush.
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Ya that sighting was in a tree at the back of the local public school. I was at that school that day. I was in grade 7. I seen the video of the cat, I knew exactly what tree it was in because there is a walk way threw that part of the bush the local kids used to use to get to school. Cops were everywhere. Noone was aloud to walk home that day, They never did find that cougar, But the video was pretty freaky of it just sitting there in the tree eyeing the guy video taping it.

The day I ever see one when hunting, I'm shooting the bastard and settling this LOL
 
Man, I had better not tell about the three cougars I have seen first hand in the wild or I might be called a liar by the experts ;). I will leave those stories for another thread or time... Have seen many more run up trees by dogs(obviously) back in the days when my fathers best friend guided for cougars very close to here. We spent our recreation time helping out in the adventures so I have seen quite a few up close.

My wife and I have a place in prime cougar country in south western Alberta. I spend a lot of time hiking/hunting and on horse back in the hills around our place and see cougar tracks on a regular basis, more than most would think.

I have a trail camera set up about 500 yards from here and in two and a half years I have caught two. Considering the amount of fresh tracks we see around here at certain times one would think you would catch a few more prowling around.

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This one walked within 25 yards of our place, up the road and right over to our horse shelter a few weeks ago. These tracks were fresh and not far in front of me, maybe 30 minutes at the most as the snow was falling hard. Pretty sure it was the same cat pictured above, seemed to hang around close to here for quite some time by the tracks and track patterns we were seeing.
The knife is 4 1/4" long:
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This one was taken not far from here:

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So yes, they can be caught on trail cameras but for the amount of different sets of tracks we see while traveling in this area I would say it is fairly rare, IMO of course. Really just the luck of the draw as to what chooses to walk by your camera.
 
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H4831 said:
Our grandson and his gf were fishing in a very small lake, using a little boat, when a cougar appeared on the grassy shoreline in plain view, less than a hundred yards away, walking along to wherever it was that it was going.
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Kinda reminded me of a few pictures taken on Lake Minnewanka in Banff a few years ago.

Would have been neat to see :)

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And yes, it did happen, no photoshop ;) :)
 
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