They shot a cougar in Langford on Monday — and a second one could be on the loose.
In any event, you won’t see Nadia Van Tankeren back on the Galloping Goose any time soon, not after fleeing one of the cats.
Van Tankeren says it was 5:55 a.m. when, walking to work along the Goose as usual, she spotted something on the trail less than 10 metres ahead.
“My first thought was ‘that’s a big dog, where’s its owner?’ ”
Then she saw the long tail.
It was a cougar, staring out at Glen Lake.
The 37-year-old Van Tankeren pulled up, uncertain what to do.
“All of sudden it turned around, it saw me, and it started running right at me.”
Van Tankeren wheeled and fled toward the closest house, maybe 70 metres away. It felt like 70 miles. “I thought I was a dead person if I didn’t run.”
Shoulder-checking, she saw the pursuing cougar slow to a trot, then stop. “He could have got me if he really wanted.”
When Van Tankeren, her heart hammering, reached the steps of the house, she pulled out her phone and did what many people do when distraught and crying: she called her parents. Then she called 911. As she spoke to the dispatcher, the cougar slipped into the bush.
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A conservation officer, a dog handler and hounds responded to that call pretty quickly. It’s rare to see a cougar in the open in daylight, rarer still — and alarming — to have it act aggressively, too. Tracking the cat from the parking lot of the Glen Lake Inn, where it had been spotted at 7:20 a.m., the dogs treed it near Anders Road, where it survived a shotgun blast — a one-ounce slug and three pellets — before being quickly treed and shot again, this time fatally.
Conservation officer Peter Pauwels initially believed it was the same animal responsible for killing four sheep in Metchosin in recent weeks.
But later Monday he received word that a cyclist riding the Galloping Goose near Glen Lake at 7:45 a.m. (just before the dogs began tracking) had seen two cougars together. One appeared healthy, the other quite thin.
That meshes with other evidence: The cougar shot Monday was robust, while the animal caught on a motion-sensitive camera near Lombard Road in Metchosin on May 23 was gaunt. Pauwels thinks they might be siblings.
Confusing things even more was a Facebook posting from another cyclist Monday: “Came pretty close to maybe fighting a cougar on the bike ride to work this morning. It popped out onto the trail without a care in the world about 15-20 feet in front of me, and I startled the sh-t out of it. Instead of running it did that crouch thing that cats do when they’re thinking about pouncing.
“I noticed a lady a couple hundred metres down the trail see this and jump into the bushes. I got off my bike just in case at this point, and the cat was still doing its thing. I gave it a good clap and it turned and kinda ran the other way. This caused the poor lady to abandon her hiding spot and run the other way. The cougar only went that way for a second before going into some bushes, but she never turned back to check.”
But no, Van Tankeren is adamant: she was within 10 metres of the cougar, not 200 metres, it did chase her, she did see it continue the pursuit and it did stay visible until her second phone call. Perhaps the Facebook poster saw the other cougar and another woman. Lord knows there were enough cougars and people sharing the Galloping Goose on Monday.
Nothing unusual about that. The trail is a wildlife highway. Cougars are not uncommon, even if we don’t see them. “Most people had no idea this thing was watching them,” Pauwels said of the dead cougar. He didn’t like shooting it, but had no option under the circumstances.
If you do see a cougar, don’t run, as that could inspire the animal to chase, Pauwels says. Instead, back away slowly. “Never turn your back on it.”
As for Van Tankeren, she is still, naturally, rattled. She saw bigger cougars while growing up in Haida Gwaii, but never had one come at her. She was grateful to the Mountie who drove her the rest of the way to her job at Superstore on Monday. And no, she doesn’t plan to go back to walking to work along the Goose any time soon.
