A Hopkins Landing resident was recently shocked by the boldness of a cougar that snatched a cat from her back porch while she was just a few feet away.
Mina Gibbons said she was calling her cat in for the night on July 23 when she saw the cat start to climb the steps to her back porch with a cougar right on its tail.
“The cougar was halfway up the stairs chasing the cat,” she said. The cougar grabbed the feline in its jaws and when Gibbons yelled at it and threw things in its direction, she said it just sauntered away with the cat in its mouth.
“I threw a huge flower pot at him full of plants and hit him, dirt went everywhere and he just carried on. He didn’t run,” Gibbons said.
“He was really bold. I ran out after him … chasing him and yelling, but he just turned and looked at me.”
Gibbons said it was a big cougar, “about six feet from toe to tail,” and she was shaken by its lack of fear of humans.
Two days later Gibbons heard about a man in Langdale who was “basically stalked” by a cougar while he was out gardening and she was quite sure it was the same aggressive cougar that took her cat from her back porch.
Conservation Officer Dean Miller agreed this week that it was likely the same animal and said the Conservation Officer Service (COS) has received several calls about the cougar in the Langdale area.
He said the man in Langdale wasn’t exactly stalked by the cougar, but he was watched and followed by it.
“He was just gardening and this large adult cougar was sitting there just looking at him, and from what he describes, it was about two feet away,” Miller said.
“He backed away slowly towards the house and the cougar followed him. So the word stalking isn’t necessarily appropriate in this situation.”
Miller explained the cougar wasn’t crouched down low, with its ears back and its tail twitching, which would have signalled to the COS that it was stalking the man and intended to attack.
“It’s the same stalking, predatory behaviour that a house cat would do, just on a much bigger scale,” Miller said.
“Definitely you could say it’s habituated to human activity though.”
Because it seems to be unafraid of humans and it’s been spotted several times in the daylight close to residential areas, the COS is trying to trap the animal and destroy it for the public’s safety; however, it’s hard to catch a cougar.
Conservation officers have searched for the cougar several times and even used dogs to locate it once, with no luck.
“It’s very difficult because they’re highly mobile animals,” Miller said, noting cougars can easily travel over 20 km in a day, and the Langdale/Hopkins Landing area abuts a large chunk of forest.
“So this cat may be on the other side of town or up the mountainside or whatnot.”
Miller encourages anyone who spots a cougar in a residential area to call the Report All Poachers and Polluters (RAPP) line at 1-877-952-7277 to let the COS know, and he asks anyone who finds a dead deer on their property to report it to the RAPP line immediately.
If the deer was killed by a cougar, the animal may still be in the area and return to its prey.
For the public’s safety, the COS advises walking on trails in groups and keeping pets on leash while in the woods.
If you encounter a cougar, allow it an avenue of escape and stay calm. Pick up all children off the ground immediately, as children’s rapid movements may provoke an attack.
Do not run. Make yourself look as large as possible and pick up sticks or branches and wave them about. Then back away from the cougar slowly. Never turn your back on a cougar.
If the cougar starts acting aggressively, throw rocks at it and speak in a loud, firm voice. If attacked, fight back. Many people have survived cougar attacks by fighting back with sticks, rocks and even fists.
Find out more at www.env.gov.bc.ca/wld/documents/cougsf.htm
