Carol Joseph knew something was wrong when her dogs started barking and her pit bull, Scooby, didn't return home Tuesday night (Feb. 14).
The next morning, Joseph's son-in-law saw a large cougar sitting in the backyard of Joseph's Cheekye Reserve house, north of Squamish. He lit a firecracker to scare it away, while Joseph phoned neighbours to warn them to keep their young children inside.
"It was scary. It was right there in my backyard," she said, noting her dogs had been acting agitated for the past couple of weeks.
On Wednesday (Feb. 15), conservation and RCMP officers attended the site, said Insp. Chris Doyle, the lead conservation officer for the Sea to Sky Corridor. The two officers found the dead dog buried in the forest behind the house. As the officers drew nearer to the cougar's food source, the cat came out of the bush and charged at the conservation officer, Doyle said. The officer was forced to shoot the cougar, which was no more than 100 metres from Joseph's home, he noted.
The officers later told Joseph that the cougar was one of the biggest they had ever seen.
The previous morning, at 6:15 a.m., conservation officers attended a vehicle accident in which a car stuck a large cougar at the bottom of Furry Creek hill. The driver was OK, but the vehicle's airbags were deployed and its front end significantly damaged, Doyle said. Conservation officers found the cougar dead on the highway.
Both cougars were large, healthy males. The snowpack this winter is high, Doyle pointed out, meaning deer are not concentrated in certain areas. This makes it difficult hunting for cougars, Doyle said.
Last summer, three cougars were killed in Garibaldi Highlands after they continually ventured into neighbourhoods and showed no fear of people. It's not known how many cougars are in the area, Doyle said. Staff at the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations estimate there are between 5,150 to 7,000 cougars in the province.
Cougars hunt year round.
"With dogs that are not confined or contained, people need to be aware that these predators are out there," Doyle said.
