City ‘unable to confirm’ cougar in Dundas
Big-cat believers have reported sightings in area at least six times since 2020
Add another unconfirmed big cat sighting to Hamilton’s favourite, furry urban legend.
An alleged cougar sighting in Dundas last week — the latest of at least half a dozen such local reports since the pandemic began — spurred hundreds of catty comments, theories and bad jokes in online forums like Reddit and Facebook.
The late-morning glimpse near Grove Cemetery on York Road was reported to the city — which fuelled further interest by tweeting it had sent an animal services officer to investigate. The Spec also pumped up the puma publicity with a story.
The upshot: the officer was “unable to confirm the sighting,” according to animal services — which later helpfully noted it has “never confirmed a big-cat sighting, ever” in city history.
So how many Dundas mystery cat reports were actually made to the city?
Well, just one — which is one more than the total reported to the district office of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, which tracks cougar sightings in Ontario.
Don’t expect believers to give up hope on the local cougar conspiracy, though. Online, local residents continue to swap tales — and in some cases repeat long-denied urban myths that the province has deliberately reintroduced the endangered animals.
Since 2020, Hamilton residents have variously reported potential pumas prowling in the Red Hill Valley, along the lakeshore in Stoney Creek, through backyards in Greensville and even across urban Woodward Avenue.
Neither the city nor the ministry has confirmed any of these sightings — although provincial experts did debunk a doorcam video of an alleged cougar in the Delta neighbourhood last summer.
The ministry said via email it gets “a small number of unconfirmed cougar sightings” every year and noted the endangered species is believed to live primarily in northern Ontario “because of the remoteness of habitat.”
The vast majority of reported sightings further south are misidentified wildlife like dogs, lynx or coyotes suffering from a skin disease like mange.
Still, improbable doesn’t mean impossible. The ministry acknowledges “some reports” continue from southern parts of the province. And a big cat was actually captured near Cobourg in 2014.
If you see a cougar, you can report the sighting to the Natural Heritage Information Centre at nhicrequests@ontario.ca. Ideally, the ministry wants to see evidence like photos or tracks.
Here’s a reminder of notable local sightings — and a few confirmed southern Ontario cases to keep hope alive.
■ July 2022: A doorcam video of a large feline stalking across a London Street South lawn spurred enough excitement in the city that the ministry eventually weighed in. The verdict: a regular house cat that looked bigger than it actually was.
■ July 2020: three alleged bigcat sightings in just a few days spurred a hunt by local bylaw officers. Terri Balfour described watching a “big, muscular cat” dart across Woodward Avenue in front of her car at night. She warned neighbours online and marked the spot with tape on a nearby road guardrail, but investigations eventually came up empty.
■ 2014: A cougar was caught with a bear trap — using steak as a lure — in a Cobourg backyard. At the time, the ministry suggested the animal may have escaped from an exotic animal collection. Area residents told the Peterborough Examiner a local landowner kept large cats and had been seen “walking his Siberian tiger with a logging chain.”
■ 2010: A hunter’s automatic “critter cam” recorded an image of a jet-black feline crouched in a farmer’s field in Wainfleet. Experts differed on whether it was a panther or overfed tomcat, but the photo kick-started a wave of cougar complaints in Niagara.
■ 2008: The OPP reported a dead cougar found along the side of Highway 403. After the find was reported in The Spec, a closer evaluation revealed it was a mangy coyote.
■ 2007: DNA found by a provincial scientist in the Wainfleet bog two years earlier is confirmed to be from a cougar.