Report from CTV Vancouver Island’s Scott Cunningham. Conservation officers are on the hunt for a cougar that’s been roaming a Vancouver Island neighbourhood after a man came face to face with one of the big cats in his own living room earlier this week. Ucluelet resident Ted Benson left the door to his basement apartment ajar for some fresh air on Monday night, when his cat came rushing in from outside.
He then heard some much larger claws outside the door, moments before a cougar walked right into his home.
“I thought immediately that this is a cat in predator mode,” Benson told CTV Vancouver Island. “It chased my cat in and you don’t want to get between a cat and its food.”
Benson charged the cougar “like a bear” and yelled as loudly as he could.
“It recoiled back,” Benson said. “It looked like it was going to strike.”
Luckily for Benson, a taxi cab driver passing his home at the time had spotted the cougar, and began honking his horn to scare the animal.
Inside, Benson continued to stare down the animal until it backed away.
“It wasn’t scared at all,” he said. “It just turned around and calmly walked out.”
Conservation Officer Troy Sterling said Benson behaved exactly as he should.
“You’re supposed to make yourself look as big as possible,” Sterling told CTV. “Stare the cougar in the eye. They take it as a threat.”
The cougar and what conservation officers believe is its sister have been spotted several times in recent weeks. Their mother was killed weeks ago after she was caught lurking near a child-care centre.
“The habituation toward people where they’re not showing any sign of fear, that’s starting to warrant them being removed from the community,” Sterling said.
Conservation officers euthanized a young male cougar on Thursday, but are still hunting its sibling.
Meanwhile, Benson said his “heart was racing the whole night,” after his encounter.
“I was going through it a thousand times in my head (wondering) what could have happened.”