Trailcam footage catches cougar: MNR
Follow the link for Video
We have a cougar and not just the ones you find in a bar.
http://www.thesudburystar.com/2014/0...ge-of-a-cougar
A long saga has culminated in a money shot of a long tail.
In early July, Michigan resident Chris Wenz set up seven trail cameras at his property south of Gore Bay, on Manitoulin Island, expecting to encounter the usual menagerie of deer, bears, foxes and raccoons.
One clip, however, showed something a bit more unusual: a large, tawny beast with a rope-like appendage, tipped in black, slinking away into the forest.
"I couldn't believe it," said Wenz on Tuesday, speaking from his home in Grosse Pointe Woods. "The tail was too long to be a bobcat or lynx, and too skinny-looking to be the tail of a wolf or coyote."
The Ford Motor Company engineer and avid deer hunter consulted with his Manitoulin neighbour Georges Prevost, who hails from Sudbury. "He said for sure that's a cougar," related Wenz.
So, in effect, has the Ministry of Natural Resources.
Rick Rosatte, a puma expert with the MNR, reviewed the video and has deemed the animal to be "consistent with a cougar," said ministry spokesperson Karen Passmore.
Wenz originally contacted The Manitoulin Expositor, which has reported extensively on cougar sightings and since 2009 has been offering a $500 reward for a verifiable photograph.
That prize will now go to Wenz, who described the money as "an added bonus for being lucky."
The Michigander said he wasn't actively trying to capture an image of the elusive animal, nor was he previously aware of the great push on Manitoulin to document the creature's presence.
"I just found out by happenstance that the Expositor was trying to substantiate that," he said.
Wenz's find is a coup for the Island paper and also a first for this region, which has generated many reports of cougars over the years, but has lacked solid, visual proof.
A study published by Rosatte in 2012 on the animal's resurgence in Ontario cites two photographs — one taken in Gowganda and the other in Orillia — as persuasive images, but otherwise the evidence is limited to tracks, scats and credible eyewitness reports.
The MNR dispersed 40 trail cameras of its own in 2009 to try to record an image of a cougar, setting them up at locations where numerous sightings had been reported, but none of these heat- and motion-triggered devices captured a trace of the enigmatic beast.
And if cougars are frequenting the sides of Highway 69 south of Sudbury, they apparently aren't using the animal span designed to spare them — and other creatures — carnage, as cameras set up at the critter crossing have similarly failed to depict a long-tailed felid.
The footage captured on Wenz's trailcam is grainy and the animal's appearance is fleeting, but it shows enough detail that Rosatte was satisfied the creature could be none other than a puma concolor, the proper name for the species.
"Confirmation was based on the shape of the animal's body, but mostly due to the length, size and black on the end of the tail," said Passmore. "There is no other animal in the woods with a tail like this other than a cougar."
The species is native to Ontario but was wiped out — or all but wiped out — over a century ago by hunting and intrusion on habitat. The last documented wild cougar in the province was shot in Creemore in 1894.
That the animal would reappear in his part of Manitoulin isn't that surprising to Wenz. "I'm only there three or four times a year, and have 120 acres, so it's essentially a nature preserve," he said.
His neighbours on either side also have large tracts of property — between 300 and 500 acres — that are "not real populated," he noted. "So, there's a lot of area for something to hang around."
As a deer hunter, Wenz would prefer the cougar was "just passing through," but he wouldn't be outraged if he did have to share his property — and a bit of venison — with a wildcat.
"The bottom line is this is their property, not mine," he said. "I'm just a guest there, and I think it's kind of cool that something like that is around."
The MNR is sending a couple of technicians to visit the site next week, said Passmore, although since the video was shot on July 3, it might be difficult to find tracks, scat or fur by this point.
If the cougar returns to the same spot, Wenz said his trail camera is still there and will remain in place until November.
"It's set in photo mode now, and good for several thousand photos," he said.
The type of trail cameras available today vastly increase the chances of capturing a rare animal on film, he said, especially compared to the "homemade 35-mm ones" — basically modified point-and-shoots, hooked up to a motion sensor and electrical box — he used to deploy. These were "cumbersome, and would only hold 36 pictures."
While photographs of wild cougars remain extremely scarce, two examples of the species were captured in the flesh in recent times in central and southern Ontario.
In July 2012, a cougar on the loose mauled a family's dog near Utterson, southwest of Huntsville, and was dispatched by police. And earlier this month a roaming cougar was trapped in Grafton, east of Oshawa, and is now being housed at a Peterborough zoo.
"The source of these latest cougars isn't known," said Passmore. "These animals could have escaped from zoos or were exotic pets, or they could have migrated from Western Canada or the United States."
In the case of the Utterson cougar, the animal was declawed and presumed to be connected with a nearby compound for exotic cats. The owner of the facility denied the cat was his, but pled guilty to failing to provide a proper enclosed structure for one of his lions.
The case of the Grafton cougar is still under investigation, said Passmore. "If the cougar can't remain at the zoo, the MNR and Riverview Zoo will work together to find a suitable facility," she said.
That a presumably wild cougar is still padding around Manitoulin and could pay repeated visits to Wenz's property doesn't make the seasonal resident nervous.
"It's just one more interesting piece of the puzzle," he said. "It doesn't change how I feel about the property or how I'll use it."
The landowner said he's already wary of bears and "super careful" about not leaving out any attractants.
"This is just one more thing to think about," he reasoned. "It's just one more cool thing that I found. And it's pretty neat to have gotten that needle in a haystack."
