Residents of a Langford neighbourhood are warning each other to be alert after multiple cougar sightings in the past week, as well as remains found of what are believed to be cougar kills, including a cat.
Since late last week, neighbours living in Thetis Heights near Thetis Lake Regional Park have been notifying one another of cougar sightings through a neighbourhood Facebook page. Several sightings have been reported on Phelps Avenue, a small portion of which borders the park, and the remains of bunnies and a raccoon have been reported.
Charmaine Corbin hadn’t seen the Facebook posts when she let her five-year-old cat, Mr. Earl Grey, out to lie in the sun on the back deck attached to her house last Thursday afternoon. The cat doesn’t wander off the deck, so when she tried to let him back in a few hours later around 5:30 p.m., Corbin said she was surprised he wasn’t there.
She and her family searched for Mr. Earl Grey that night, shaking a treat bag, with no luck. “I knew something was wrong then,” Corbin said.
Her daughter found the remains of Mr. Earl Grey the next morning underneath the branch of a fir tree about three metres from the back of their house. “He was literally in pieces. It was traumatic,” Corbin said.
Videos shared among neighbours show a cougar up on a rock in a driveway that overlooks Corbin’s backyard. She believes the big cat stalked her pet from there and came into her yard to kill him.
“These cougars came right up to our house and just ripped him up and didn’t eat him,” she said.
She and her family are devastated by their pet’s death and the way it happened. Corbin wants others to be aware that cougars are in the area and to take precautions.
The B.C. Conservation Officer Service has received several reports of cougar sightings in the Thetis Lake area.
The Ministry of Environment said in a statement the majority of Vancouver Island is considered cougar country and sightings are not unusual in rural areas, particularly those bordered by forests.
Roaming pets are considered easy prey, and pet owners are encouraged to supervise animals when outside and avoid feeding pets outside, the ministry said.
The Conservation Officer Service will continue to monitor cougar activity in the area. Sightings can be reported to the Report All Poachers and Polluters line at 1-877-952-7277.
Chris Darimont, a professor of geography at the University of Victoria, said the big cats spotted recently are likely juveniles that have just left their mother and their birth territory to establish themselves. They struggle to compete with adult cougars, so they often occupy marginal habitats at the edge of suburbs, said Darimont, who is also a scientist with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation.
They might be inexperienced in hunting their natural prey, which on the Island is black-tailed deer, and can see cats, dogs and other small animals as alternatives, he said.
Places such as Langford that have chipped away at forested areas over many years have created “a whole bunch of edge,” where rural or suburban human-dominated areas back onto forest, Darimont said.
“That’s often the conflict zone, so it’s kind of a double whammy. You take away habitat for cougars and their main prey, deer. And you create a whole bunch of edges where people, pets, kids bump up against cougar habitat. So in some ways, this is the bed we’ve made,” he said.
Darimont said when residents know there’s a big cat in the area, they should pay particular attention to pets, livestock and young children, especially at dawn and dusk.
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