Possible cougar captured on video in Grand Falls

A Grand Falls woman claimsshehas captured a cougar on camera as it walked through a field across from her home in northwestern New Brunswick.

The 14-second video shows a long, dark, animal walking in tall grass before stopping to look around. For a brief moment a long tail appears to be visible through the grass.

"It was a cougarand it was big," said Michele McLaughlin, who captured the video and two pictures with her cellphone.

"I was looking out my living room window, and I go, 'What is that?'It's like a big cat.' So I got into my vehicle and I drove to the end of the driveway and I go, 'Oh wow,That is a cougar.'"

McLaughlin saidit was around 4 p.m.on Oct.5when she captured the video.

"It was no dogand it was not a cat," said McLaughlin.

"It was a big cougar. I mean it was big, like really big."

After capturing the video McLaughlin took it to George Levesque, a recently retiredconservation officer.

"I've been in the woods for 35 years," saidLevesque.

"I've seenlots ofcats, lynxes and bobcatsand fishers that look like long, black, cats,but I'm 100 per centsure this was a cougar."

Levesque saidhe's never seen anything like what was captured in the video during his time in the forest as a conservation officer.

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"I always doubted that there was some. But what I'm surprised about is that he wasn't very shy, he was out in the open, it was a warm sunny day," he said.

"It was unusual, but there is prey there, deer, rabbits."

McLaughlinbrought the video to CBC News after hearing previous reports of a big cat in Tracy thatseveral rattled residentsbelieveis also a cougar.

Better video needed

CBC News gave the video toBruce Dougan,thegeneral manager of the Moncton Zoowho works with big cats daily including cougars.

"It moves like a big cat," saidDougan, general manager of the Moncton Zoo.

Dougan said it could be a cougar, but said it wasn't clear.

"To make any positive determination you'd have to have a good full shot of the bodyand to see the full tail," said Dougan.

"It's just not clear in that video, to me anyway what I could see of it, that Icoulddefinitelysay it was a cougar."

Castaway cats

There have only been two proven cases of cougars being in New Brunswick.

In 2003, a pair of hair samples were collected in Fundy National Park and proven to be from two separate cougars, one from a North Americanpopulation andthe other from a South Americanpopulation.

DonaldMcAlpine,research curator head of zoologyofthe New Brunswick Museum, has stated that while there may be individualcougarsin the province they wouldbeindividualwanderers from the west ormost likely escaped or released animals that were once kept by humans.

McAlpine saidin the case of the evidence of a South American cougar it had to have been a released animal.

He states there is no population in the provincecapableofreproducing.