Cougar family euthanized in Penticton prompts debate over practice

A habituated female cougar and three juveniles were euthanized by conservation officers in Penticton this week for posing a threat to public safety.

Penticton resident Crystal Nohr watched intently as the cougar family emerged from beneath a fence meters from her backyard off Cleland Avenue.

“Friday morning at 10:00 a.m. my daughter looked out the kitchen window and she was right here staring back at us and we saw one baby cub, they went up into those trees, and that’s when I called conservation.”

Nohr said the wild animals appeared unphased by people.

“Not at all, she looked right at me here and it didn’t phase them,” she said from her home on Wednesday.

A public safety advisory went out last week after several sightings near Columbia Elementary School on Allison St.

Sgt. Jim Beck with the B.C. Conservation Officer Service said it was the cougars’ total disregard for human presence that ultimately led to their demise.

“I’ve been a conservation officer for 31 years and this was the first time I’ve had a cougar incident where she displayed this type of comfort with human development,” Beck said.

Beck added the adult female cougar was teaching her young how to hunt in populated areas and showed “stalking behavior” around a dog being walked by its owner.

The three juvenile cougars were killed in a tree off Penticton Avenue on Tuesday.

The mother cougar managed to escape but returned overnight to the site where she had made a prior kill.

That’s where conservation officers set up a trap– off a popular walking trail behind Brookside Estates.

“Leg hold holding traps were placed around it, and sometime yesterday (Tuesday), last night, she entered the site, got captured, and this damage is likely due to her clawing on the tree,” Beck said, pointing to a tree where claw and bite marks were clearly visible.

Andrew Reid who lives nearby said he heard the shots on Tuesday.

He said the cougars should have been tranquilized and re-located.

“Why kill an animal when they don’t have to kill them… I think it was wrong because they could have transported them somewhere else.”

But Beck said conservation officers felt they had no other option.

“The fear was that if we re-located this cat to another area she’s going to exhibit the same behavior.”

For some residents left on edge, the news brings a sigh of relief.

“I think they did their job, wild animals don’t co-habitate with humans and it was just building, the anxiety, in the neighbourhood, that something bad was going to happen,” Nohr said.