 
ANOTHER KIND OF CAT MICHAEL PRICE
BROME COUNTY, QUEBEC | The Eastern Cougar has had quite an adverse effect on my life considering it is officially nonexistent. Two years ago I saw one.
Weekends are spent looking out the windows of our house near Mount Echo in Quebec's Eastern Townships, hoping to see another one. Weekdays friends goad me into telling my tale, absorbing my response and confirming their initial thought that I must be losing it. Even my son only concedes that I saw "something" on that fateful November day in 1996.
Before I get to that, I have to say that there are others out there like me - frightened not of cougars but of mankind. This is your chance to come out, banish shame and clothe yourselves in 'naturalistic' respectability. There was to have been a Cougar Spotters' Pride Day but that copycat idea was shelved for a more prestigious approach when an eminent Brome County-raised biologist became aware of the sightings. He agreed to attach his name to a suitable association. Brome Cougar Spotters (BCS, to give it an academic ring) was launched.
The President Emeritus is biologist Dr. Michael Pilson, B.Sc.(Bishop's), M.Sc.(McGill), Ph.D.(Calif.) whose family moved in 1945 to Knowlton, where he graduated from Knowlton High School. BCS bylaws state that anyone in Brome County who has personally seen a cougar qualifies for membership. The Sherbrooke Record has agreed to receive evidence such as written accounts of sightings, photos, remains, fur, track castings. Here are the stories of a few who currently qualify for membership:
At about 2 p.m. on a summer's day in 1986, Mrs. Francise De Buck and a Belgian friend were motoring on Mount Echo Road north of where it meets Rosenberry. They saw a large beige cat, "with a body five feet long and a tail of 2-1/2 feet," walk through Mr. Halpin's farmyard and cross the road 50 feet in front of them. The animal was in clear view for about 30 seconds. Mrs. De Buck described the cat as large and muscular. When shown a picture of a cougar, she immediately confirmed that it was what she had seen, noting among other things, the distinct facial markings that matched those of the big beige cat they had seen.
She and her friend were afraid to get out of the car. Mrs. De Buck told the neighbouring farmer, Donald Page, about the unusual sighting so close to his property. Mr. Page nonchalantly replied that it could have been a mountain lion. Interviewed, he stated that he had never actually seen one in his long lifetime in the area. Nor had another adjacent farmer, Roger Halpin. Both raise cattle in the eye of Brome's cougar sightings but neither had lost any animals except to coyotes.
In 1997 the De Bucks had a visitor from Belgium; he reported seeing a fast-moving tawny animal in the woods. He knew from the way it ran that it was not a deer but could not see it plainly for the underbrush. He and the De Bucks strongly suspect it was another cougar.
On a bright fall day in 1981 Lloyd Herman and his son Michael were preparing to go back to collecting wood after a lunch break when they saw an unusual animal about 150 yards away in the open green field. They observed it through binoculars for 30 to 40 seconds. What they saw kept them indoors for the afternoon.
The Herman farm adjoins the Page and Halpin farms. The Hermans did report the sighting to Eric Foster, the area's senior game warden who said the animal was not native and had probably escaped custody. He suggested letting the matter rest as it might frighten people unduly. In a later interview, Mr. Foster reported that his wife had seen a cougar in 1986 near Brome Village, but she was not available to give a first hand report.
Another black cougar was sighted in the early 1960s on Highway 243 between Knowlton and South Bolton, 6 km east from the Herman sighting. It was a snowy night in December and Wendy Gaylor, then 6, and her father were returning to their home in Bolton Centre. They saw a big black cat, doubtless accentuated by the white background. Three feet long with a tail 2 feet long, it crossed the road in front of them. Mr. Gaylor told Wendy not to talk about it outside the family as no one would believe it and the family would be ridiculed.
Cougars, which are also called panthers, painters, pumas, catamounts and mountain lions, change from beige to a bluish grey in the winter - much like their prey the white-tailed deer. The species very rarely produces black 'melanistic' individuals, although none of these has ever been confirmed in the eastern sub-species.
Very extraordinary sightings were reported by Christopher Severs, proprietor of Knowlton's L.L. Brome. In mid-December 1996 he drove uphill by Mr. Halpin's farm and around the next bend. The road was powdered with snow, which may have muffled his approach. He describes coming over a crest to see two cougars 150 feet ahead in the middle of the road. He got a full and close head-to-tail view of both. Chris judged their body lengths at 5 to 6 feet, tails at 3 feet. They both jumped about 20 feet to opposite sides of the road and disappeared into the evergreens. He was not inclined to get out of his car to examine the tracks, which would have shown well in the snow.
My sighting was 50 feet from our house, a kilometre east of the Page and Halpin farms on Rosenberry Road. It was at noon one day in November 1996. My wife Jennifer was in the kitchen. I was eating and looking out the window.
Suddenly a beige cat, 5 to 6 feet long, with a tail of 3 feet, walked swiftly by. I called Jennifer but she was too late. The sighting was about 10 seconds. I got into my car and tried to intercept the cat but it had vanished. When I got back I looked into the field from whence the cougar came. Deer were feeding. The previous night I was observing three deer at the end of our field. They carried their dark fall fur. What I thought was a deer crept toward the threesome, shielded by a land fold. It was light coloured, unlike the three deer with their winter coats. Suddenly the deer bolted and disappeared into the forest. The light coloured intruder went back into the woods.
I thought it odd and surmised that it might have been a coyote, of which there were many. Now I believe it was the cougar that I saw the next day. I have never seen a cougar again. Peter and Susan Walsh had told me about their sighting. I telephoned Peter right away. He was elated. "Now Mike, if the men in white suits take me in the paddy wagon, I know I will have company" - more company than he ever envisioned after I had made inquiries and heard the other stories.
My last story is the most sensational. In late morning of a beautiful early fall day in 1997, Gary Broadhurst, his wife Kathleen and daughter Kelly were driving from Jackson to Draper Road, about 6 kilometres south of the Page and Halpin farms. Seventy yards ahead, they saw one, then two, then three, then four, small cougars cross the road. They were 60 feet away when the last one crossed.
Gary, a seasoned trapper and hunter, recognized what he saw and he knew they were not animals that might confuse a layman - lynx, bobcat and fisher to mention the most obvious. "A cougar," Gary stated definitively, "has a distinct tail, tubular, curving down, then up at the end." These four cats were of equal size and colouring: 2-1/2 feet long with 18 inch tails and light grey. Gary has no doubt that they were cougars and speculated that they might same that were sighted in the Spring of 1997 in Sutton Junction.
Now ending with that account surely ices the cougar credibility cake. I am aware of other sightings: in Sutton Junction already alluded to, of Donna Herman near Mount Echo, of Hugette Day at Glen Sutton, and of a man in Brome Centre, and still others from outside Brome County. What started as a personal account was turning into a book and not being an author I pass to Charles Bury. Should you qualify for BCS membership e-mail him. As Peter Walsh said, the more we are, the less likely we'll be put in the paddy wagon.
This is the kind of column I like the best, because someone else wrote it - reader Michael Price of Montreal and Sutton Township. Mr. Price deals with a mysterious subject but one which is close to my heart. Read this and think about what he has to say. If you have a similar tale to tell, please don't be shy and get in touch with me. In two weeks we'll have more on the subject, including what I hope will be a very interesting surprise...Charles Bury.
Michael Price owns and loves a farm near Mount Echo. He is owner of Price-Patterson Ltd., a Montreal publishing house specializing in Quebec lore and local history. Four of its titles are Townships-based: "Once A Lion", "With Heart and Hands and Voices", "The Megantic Outlaw" and "Roots beneath the Pavement".
To reach Charles Bury you can leave a message at either the Sherbooke Record office (450) 242-1188 or (819) 569-6345, fax him at (819) 569-3945, e-mail him at charbury@netrevolution.com, or throw some dynamite in the river and see what comes up. Don't be shy, he's not a bad fellow once you get to know him.
Copyright © 1998 Michael Price/Log Cabin Chronicles/10.98 |