Could they be cougars? Experts say it’s likely
Posted Feb 26, 2019 07:56:00 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Nova Scotians have been hearing about cougar sightings for years.
Wildlife officials have concluded many of those reports were actually bobcats, house cats or fakes, but now there's solid evidence the large cats may actually be in the province.
Last week, Lindsay Trask uploaded a video on YouTube showing three cats walking down a hill behind her Digby Neck home that has convinced two experts that cougars may be present in Nova Scotia.
“There is enough information on that video to make me feel that cougar was the logical conclusion,” said wildlife biologist Bob Bancroft.
Curator of zoology at the Nova Scotia Museum, Andrew Hebda, agrees.
“Long tail, so not bobcat, not lynx,” he said.
In addition, Hebda told NEWS 95.7's The Rick Howe Show, footprint photos submitted by Trask rule out the possibility they were house cats.
“The pad … with domestic cats they have three smooth, rounded lobes to them. This one has two rounded lobes on the side and the top is flattened out,” he explained. “That's classic cougar.”
However, in order for provincial wildlife experts to officially recognize the cougar's existence in Nova Scotia, DNA evidence would be needed.
“When they groom they take in a quite a bit of hair, so based on a scat analysis you could do a DNA [test] and determine what you've got,” Hebda said.
Bancroft said cougars are generally solitary animals. As the video shows three travelling together, he believes it's a mother with two juveniles.
