Forget Bigfoot, UFOs or sea monsters:Niagara has the invisible cougar

Forget Bigfoot, UFOs or sea monsters:Niagara has the invisible cougar
May 17, 2009
Posted By GRANT LAFLECHE
The Standard

I once knew a guy who, if plied with enough rounds of bourbon and Coke, would regale you with the tallest of tall tales.

He's encountered Bigfoot, you see. The sasquatch in all of its nine-foot-tall, shaggy glory was as plain as the nose on his face, he'll say. He's even got a footprint. Well, it's a photo of a vaguely foot-shaped blob. It might also be Sir John A. McDonald in profile. I can't really tell.

And may the Flying Spaghetti Monster help you if you so much as doubt his word that a giant ape-man once sat in his backyard and ate garbage.

"I know what I saw!" he'll say and shoo you off with a broom.

It's the same all over I suppose. Here in Niagara we have our own cadre of ghost

hunters, psychics and assorted UFO buffs who peddle the same nonsense as Bigfoot aficionados. These are the types wearing "I want to believe" Xfiles T-shirts and think the moon landings were faked.

But while venting about believing improbable things, I will admit a good monster myth helps ye ole' tourist trade.

Unfortunately, we don't have a Sasquatch or a Loch Ness Monster. Heck, we don't even have an Ogopogo or a Blair Witch.

The best we in Niagara have cooked up is a cougar. Not a giant cougar, or a cougar that can sing and dance to Ragtime Gal. Just a plain, black cougar. Or sometimes it's brown. Or tan. But mostly it's invisible.

It doesn't even have a cool name like Bagheera, or Cougarific Jones, or Lance. It's not even THE cougar. In fact as far as urban legends go, the never-photographed cougar is pretty lame.

The evidence for the existence of this feline is only slightly better than the evidence suggesting that Paul McCartney really isn't the shoe-less guy on the cover of The Beatles' Abbey Road album.

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The fact of the matter is there has only ever been one scrap of evidence found to indicate the possible presence of a cougar -- DNA found in Wainfleet in 2004. But even the scientist who confirmed it points out nothing conclusive has been found since.

But why worry about that when there is public money to burn? The Ministry of Natural Resources is spending $12,000 on motion and heat cameras to try and capture images of an animal there is very little reason to think is actually out there.

But that doesn't stop people from insisting it's real. And I fear this fine newspaper has a hand in it.

Years ago, to my continuing chagrin, we ran a photo from a freelancer of what is clearly a chubby house cat waddling about in some tall grass under the headline: "Panther or fat house cat?"

For weeks after that, it was all cougars all the time. People were calling in claiming they were seeing cougars everywhere. On the highway. In their backyard. At ladies' night at the local pub.

But like Bigfoot sightings, there wasn't any evidence.

Odd, no? I mean, you can go into the deepest jungles of Africa and photograph the most elusive predators on Earth, but apparently cougars can move around Niagara without a trace. We find cats, dogs, deer and coyotes, but not a single cougar.

Also odd that in Alberta, where I'm from, there are no problems finding cougars. One of the first news stories I wrote was about a 175-pound cougar that was killing the livestock of local ranchers.

But then perhaps in Niagara they are noncorporeal, invisible cougars that subsist on field mice and pine cones.

The point being that until there is some solid evidence, our tax dollars can be better spent elsewhere and we can all take a deep, rational breath and realize the truth -- there is no cougar.

Unless we can give him a cool name for tourists. How does "Niagara: Home of Snagglepus the Magic Cat" strike you?