A cougar that killed a pet cat in front of its owner in Comox has been destroyed after being deemed a threat.
“The cougar was already on the way up the stairs when I opened the door”
Leanne Reid was recounting Wednesday what happened outside her Comox home Sunday evening when she went to let her cat back inside.
“The cougar grabbed the cat right at my front door, right at the stoop and then went through the railing and ended up in the leaves over there,” said Reid.
She says she threw rocks at the cougar but it just stared back at her with her 18-year-old cat Jinx in its mouth.
“I’ll never be able to get rid of the sound of her being killed,” added Reid.
“I was horrified, especially right at her feet, it’s just so traumatic,” said her neighbour Carleen Webber.
The cougar returned Monday morning and was sitting at the bottom of the stairs when Reid’s husband left the house at 4 am. It was not easily scared off.
Then Wednesday morning, the cougar showed up again near the entrance to her mobile home park on Anderton Road and stood right where school kids would be waiting for a bus in just a few minutes.
Police came to escort the children to the bus while Conservation officers and a team of tracking dogs looked for the cougar.
“We were able to pick up scent very quickly with the hounds approximately 200 metres from where the cougar had killed the lady’s cat,” said Steve Petrovcic of the BC Conservation Officer Service. “The cougar was located, the cougar treed and it was subsequently destroyed.”
Leanne said she feels bad that the cougar had to be put down but was worried about young children who live in the park.
Conservation officers found three other domestic cat carcasses near the cougar.
“The human safe and healthy factor was elevated in this situation,” added Petrovcic. “Combine that with very desensitized behaviour, it prompted an immediate response.”
He said the young male juvenile cougar was not a candidate for relocation.
Dean Stoltz
