BELWOOD – Three feet long, over a hundred pounds, a long tail, and a smoky-grey coat. Many may doubt, but Haley Phillips is a true believer: this was a cougar.
“It’s probably the most beautiful cat I’ve ever seen,” she said, providing the description.
Along with her husband, Matt Woods, and two young children, Kaisley and Kanon, she has two golden retrievers.
Phillips called out to Maverick and Kazi on the evening of Sept. 27 as she steered her golf cart around on the gravel road and peeled away in the opposite direction of the large animal standing at the edge of a wooded area off 5th Line, behind Maple Leaf Acres.
“Mommy, is that a lion?” asked five-year-old Kaisley Woods after Phillips brought the golf cart to a sliding halt.
It’s no lion, Phillips said she told her daughter, but it was time to get out of there.
Word of the alleged sighting spread as fact in the days after Phillips posted a generic photo of a cougar to a local Facebook group, warning its 16,000 members.
The post has been shared over 400 times and commented on hundreds of times since.
Alleged sightings in the area are nothing new, with media reports surfacing every few years or so, from Orangeville through to Cambridge.
The Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) has long said most sightings of cougars, also known as mountain lions and pumas, across the province actually involve other animal species.
Male cougars can grow to six-and-a-half feet (two metres) in length and weigh over 132 pounds (60kg).
Adults have short, brown fur that is brown, greyish or reddish, with a white chest and belly, and a black-tipped tail. They have a black muzzle and ears with black markings.
Deer, fishers, lynx, bobcats, exotic cat varieties and dogs can all be mistaken for a cougar.
Ryan Norris, an ecologist with the University of Guelph’s College of Biological Science, said it’s “possible but highly unlikely” the animal Phillips saw was a cougar.
Without a self-sustaining population in Ontario, Norris said, a cougar would have escaped captivity or wandered in from a westerly province or state.
In 2012, the OPP shot and killed a cougar near Huntsville – a pet that escaped an exotic animal farm – after it killed a German shepherd.
At African Lion Safari, located around 70km from Wellington County, near Cambridge, there are no cougars, the company told the Advertiser.
“The only big cats we have are cheetahs, white lions, and tawny lions,” an African Lion Safari official said, adding all its cats are accounted for.
Cougars near Kenora, in Dryden and Thunder Bay, and one captured on a trail camera in Pukaskwa National Park, south of Marathon, have been confirmed by the MNR. But it’s unknown where they moved in from.
A 2022 study of Ontario cougars suggests growing deer populations – the wildcats’ primary prey – are bringing cougars eastward from their traditionally western breeding grounds.
Cougars typically disperse 150 to 700 kilometres beyond their home territory, though several examples exist well above that range.
Eastern cougars were largely thought to be eradicated by 1940, however three studies between the ’80s and mid-2000s confirmed cougars were in Ontario.
“It is unknown whether the animals were escaped or released captives, immigrants from western North America, native cougars, or a genetic mixture of several sources,” stated a 2015 study led by MNR researcher Rick Rosatte and published in the journal Canadian Field Naturalist.
In other words, there’s no known breeding population home to Ontario.
Three days after Phillips’ post, another appeared on a local parents’ Facebook group with a photo purporting to show a cougar-like animal prowling through a soybean field behind Courtney Street in Fergus.
Karoline Calin said her husband, Rodrigo Correa, took the photo on Monday from inside their Courtney Street home.
Calin, who posted the photo to Facebook, said “our goal was to warn neighbours with kids playing in the area.”
“All our thoughts came along with the past [post] about cougars in the area,” Calin said, adding, “when you have heard about something, you also see something.”
Calin’s post was also widely shared and commented on, with opinions divided on whether the animal was a dog or something else.
Having lived along the farm field for the past year, the family has noticed deer, foxes, turkeys and, on rare occasion, dogs accompanied by their owners walking through.
The couple doesn’t know what the animal was, but based on its size and movement, suspects it wasn’t a dog.
For her part, Phillips said she had no idea her unrelated Sept. 27 post would get such attention.
Rumours abounded. Some social media users reported their own cougar sightings around Wellington County.
Laurette Colby told the Advertiser that last fall she came face-to-face in the Elora area with what she’s convinced was a cougar.
Leanne Kutch recalled seeing a cougar dart off into a wooded area on the outskirts of Belwood around a decade ago.
“It was so obvious to me,” Kutch told the Advertiser. “I had no doubt in my mind.”
Others were skeptical, suggesting sightings were overzealous reactions.
The MNR did not make anyone available to be interviewed for this story.
In a prepared statement, a spokesperson said there were no recently received reports of cougar sightings in Wellington County.
“The ministry does not specifically track reports of cougars, as most observations remain unverified or are confirmed to be other species,” the statement said.
Wellington OPP spokesperson Matthew Burton said he is not aware of any recent reports to police.
Phillips has since purchased a trail camera to try and capture irrefutable proof.
“I’m really hoping the trail cam will get something,” Phillips said, “because there’s lots of people that are skeptical about it.”
