Local conservation officers have killed an "unusually large" 130-pound female cougar which they believe to be responsible for a slew of pet and livestock deaths near the Mahan Trail in Upper Gibsons over the past year.
"We've had numerous calls over the last six months around the Cedar Grove Elementary School area and we've had a number of livestock and pets that have gone missing and been killed," said Sunshine Coast conservation officer Murray Smith. "It's a situation where we feel that this was a cougar that needed to be destroyed."
Smith said conservation received a report Wednesday, Jan. 27 that a cougar had killed two goats in the Chaster Road area near the Mahan Trail, eating one and leaving the second carcass behind. The following night the second carcass disappeared, alerting conservation that the cougar was likely still in the area.
At first light Friday morning, Jan. 29, conservation officers, together with a cougar houndsman from Powell River and his dogs, tracked the cougar. The bloodhounds "treed" the cougar within about 45 minutes, trapping it up in a tree, Smith said, and the cougar was then shot.
Between January 2009 and January 2010 conservation has received 140 cougar reports on the Lower Sunshine Coast, of which 53 came from the Mahan Trail area. In the five years prior, he said, conservation averaged only 20 to 30 cougar reports a year. Last August, conservation killed a cougar which had been stalking livestock near Orange Road in Roberts Creek.
"What's been happening on the Sunshine Coast is we seem to have an awful lot of deer moving into the urban fringe and you see it, everybody sees it, lots of deer in our neighbourhoods," he said, explaining that deer levels in the forest have simultaneously been decreasing. "So with this movement [of deer] from the forest into the urban fringe, the cougars have obviously started to move in as well."
Smith said that people in the Mahan Trail area shouldn't let down their guard, even with this cougar dead.
"There could be more cougar," he said, advising particular caution with children and pets. "If you see a cougar, pick up both [children and pets] and then we recommend you make yourself large, raise your hands overtop your head, speak aggressively with them, make noise and back away from the situation. But be aggressive with a cougar at all times."
