 CHARLES BURY
LINGWICK, QUEBEC | Recently we've talked about that most mysterious, illusive forest creature, the Eastern Mountain Lion. Readers young and old have told us their stories, describing in detail those few instants when they saw what they thought was their cougar.
I say 'thought' because, despite the credibility of the witnesses and the similarities of what they saw, none of the incidents reported provided any physical proof. But that doesn't mean there isn't any.
Quebec conservation branch wildlife technician Jean-Jacques Dubois has been collecting Eastern Townships cougar reports for years. And now he thinks he's got the real goods. The following are excerpts from Mr. Dubois' report on an incident last month, titled Predation of a Whitetail Deer, Mar-Rin Territory, 3 Sept. 1988.
The Mar-Rin lands are located off Route 108 in Ste-Marguerite de Lingwick, in a tract owned by the forest products giant Domtar and leased by the Mar-Rin fish and game club.
"This is a special case to say the least," Dubois reported. "First, there have already been several documented sightings in this area in the last few years, along with a report of an attack on a deer (Jean-Guy Marois, June 1996). Several other cases have been reported here - Michel Viger, July 1998, Lesley Irving, Dec. 1993, Warren Begbie, May 1996, Yvon and Monique Marois, June 1995, etc.
In the present case a young female deer was by all appearances attacked and killed by a predator whose signs seem very revealing."
"Club warden Guy Roy took us to a place where at first he thought he'd found a poaching scene. A large patch of blood covered half the logging road for a distance of about 6 feet. When he got close he noticed that the prey had been dragged off the road into the ditch. Hidden in the roadside brush, the animal had been completely gutted, and it had to have happened overnight because the deer meat was still fresh.
"When he got closer to the animal Mr. Roy noticed claw marks on its back and neck, so he warned club member Laurent Cloutier, who is also a provincial conservation officer. Roy and Cloutier protected the site and Dubois was called in along with his Conservation branch colleague, Biologist Marc-Jacques Gosselin.
"We could see that the deer had been chased along the road for about 25 metres, and knocked down by its pursuer right on the gravel. Some bits of intestine and the animal's paunch had been left lying in a big pool of blood. A trail of blood led through the brush to the ditch and the completely gutted deer was about 5 to 6 metres from the road and nearly invisible from it.
"We took note of the types of wounds and their location on the deer's carcass. Normally, attacks by canine (dog-like) species aim at the prey's hindquarters. Attacks by domestic dogs also tend to confirm this. In the present case, all the wounds are located on the animal's front, more precisely on the back and neck.
"The predator's tracks are also interesting. An impressive size, 10 to 12 centimetres, they show four toes whose claws are extended because of the chase and are solidly dug into the gravel on the road. The gravel was packed down quite hard and it was clear that the animal must have been fairly heavy. The foot pads clearly resemble those described in the literature, and the toes have inward-curved claws which are visible in the moulds I made.
"Whatever ate the deer didn't touch any major muscle. The heart, liver, lungs - all the internal organs had disappeared. The ends of some ribs were gone as well as the muscles linking the chest cavity to the tops of the legs. The head didn't seem to have been touched.
"Three things on the carcass attract attention. The clawmarks at the base of the neck and behind the ear betray the attack of a feline (cat-like) species. The way the animal was gutted without touching the hindquarters also excludes the dog or coyote. In any event the predator's tracks also rule out this possibility. The force used to tear open the chest cavity also indicate an animal gifted with uncommon strength.
"The questions which remain are: " - Can a Canada Lynx capture a deer of this size, hold it down to kill it, open it up as seen in the photo (I've spared you this view but let's just say the deer's belly was ripped wide open from stem to stern), carry it a dozen metres, and completely devour all its internal organs and the muscles attaching the Front legs to the thorax? " - Is the Canada Lynx present in this territory? "- May we finally presume that this is the work of a cougar? I repeat this important detail: It took a very heavy animal of extraordinary strength to catch, hold down and kill a deer weighing more than 70 kilograms (154 pounds). It's also worth noting that the predator's tracks were visible right up to the spot where the deer went down. The 'cat' wasn't on the deer's back."
Copyright © 1998 Charles Bury/Log Cabin Chronicles/10.98 |