ONTARIO—Following the release of The Expositor story and video giving conclusive proof of an eastern cougar on a Gordon/Barrie Island property last week, word spread across the province with Northern Ontario’s oldest newspaper attracting plenty of media attention of its own.
Expositor editor Alicia McCutcheon was interviewed on both Radio Canada’s Wednesday afternoon program as well as CBC Sudbury’s Points North and ended the week as Friday’s lead story on MCTV’s six o’clock news. The Expositor and its found cougar also took up an entire page in the Thursday edition of the Toronto Sun thanks to summertime Kagawong resident and Sun columnist Mike Strobel. While former Expositor editor Jim Moodie did not want to go on the record about the cougar he so often wrote about during his tenure at this paper, he did write a story of his own about the video for the Sudbury Star.
Production and editorial staff made the call on Tuesday evening to release the story and video sooner than later, posting it online and sharing it on Facebook and Twitter at 8 pm Tuesday. Twelve hours later it had been seen over 30,000 times on Facebook and to date it has had almost 75,000 views—a new Expositor record. It’s been fun, to say the least.
On Monday morning of this week, David Howard of Grafton, Ontario emailed the editor to say he too had had a cougar sighting and contacted the paper after seeing The Expositor’s coverage, but one that was much more up close and personal, and not on Manitoulin.
Some may recall news reports of the cougar captured in Grafton, near Cobourg, in mid-July. Numerous residents in the area had seen the big cat and contacted the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF). Although the cougar never once displayed any signs of aggression, it was too close for comfort.
The MNRF left a live bear trap in one resident’s backyard that the 150-pound cougar had been frequenting with some chicken and a t-bone steak inside as a lure. One day later, the cougar was trapped, not being able to withstand the temptation any longer. The MNRF has not yet released details as to whether or not the cat was an escaped domestic—its claws were still intact—but its ease around humans lead many to believe this might be the case as cougars are notoriously shy, as The Expositor’s five-year pursuit for photographic evidence demonstrates.
The cougar, nicknamed Charlie, is resting at the Riverview Park and Zoo in Peterborough under quarantine and, according to news reports, is doing well, but is not keen on horsemeat.
Mr. Howard told The Expositor he spent four hours getting pictures of the Grafton cougar and was once stalked by the big feline while lying down behind a large tree. “He spotted me and must have thought I was wounded and would make an easy meal,” he said. “It took the MNRF about three days to trap him but not before I took about 760 photos.”
The photos, in this case, are bright and crisp and show the whole body of the animal. The decision was made to publish them to give Haweaters a clear idea of what the endangered cat looks like. It is a stunning creature.
Now that we know that we live side-by-side with cougars, The Expositor would like to remind its readers that this is a shy, evasive cat that likes to be left alone, so let’s keep it that way.
On the other hand, now that the MNRF and the Ontario Puma Foundation have verified The Expositor’s cougar photo contest winner as genuine evidence of the presence of at least one of the big cats here, we’d like to hear more of your stories about up-close-and-personal encounters with the beasts (but please don’t go searching for them). We know we’ve got them as we’ve published many to date. But, guaranteed, there are lots more so please share them with the paper to publish.
Send them to editor@manitoulin.ca or via Canada Post to The Expositor Office, P.O. Box 369, Little Current, Ontario, P0P 1K0.
The Expositor still does business via fax too so that number is 705-368-3822.
Please include as much about your Manitoulin cougar encounter/sighting as you can: year, time, circumstances, approximate location.
