Warning: The pictures and details in this story may be disturbing to some readers.
A young cougar that came onto a rural Alberta property on Tuesday afternoon and killed a family’s cat returned to the house again later that evening.
Jessica Low was at her home on the southwestern outskirts of Calgary at about 12:30 p.m. when the initial encounter happened. She had just prepared lunch for her five-year-old daughter when the cougar appeared through their patio window.
The cougar hissed and pawed at the window for five to 10 minutes, before eventually dropping the dead cat in the family’s garden and walking away. Low said the ordeal was terrifying. She had just barely calmed down when the cougar returned to the same window around 9:15 p.m.
“It (was) banging its head on the window,” Low said from her home on Wednesday. She walked over to the window and the cougar ran away.
“I felt like I just stopped shaking. I was up the rest of the night, couldn’t sleep. It was terrifying,” she continued. “It just makes me more scared that this is an aggressive cat.”
Alberta Fish and Wildlife officers returned to the property on Wednesday to set traps to catch the animal.
The cougar sightings have shaken those who live in the the rural neighbourhood.
“Everyone is driving their kids to the bus stops, which are literally at the top of our driveways. The bus comes right to our houses. Everyone is being extra cautious,” Low said.
Karen McMullan lives in the area and said the motion sensors on her property captured the cougar on her land on Tuesday night.
“He started at my patio and went around and then he went in the paddock with my horses,” she said Wednesday.
Once the cougar moved on, McMullan locked her horses and cats in the barn overnight. She said living in a rural area, it’s not uncommon to see wildlife, but this cougar encounter was a bit different and makes her a little bit nervous.
“I’ve never seen a cougar go to a back door and act like he did,” McMullan said. “It was a little distressing.”
The communications co-ordinator for the Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation said this particular encounter is not overly common.
“This is definitely the behaviour of a cat who is very confident and very used to being around human spaces,” Scottie Potter said. “At the very least, in this case, it was an animal that also had food nearby.”
Potter said the roaming cat likely helped attract the cougar to the property. While hesitant to describe the cougar’s behaviour as aggressive, Potter said the animal certainly seemed defensive.
“The cat was vocalizing in the direction of the person behind the glass, but food was right there and it very well could have been, ‘This is my food, not yours,'” Potter said.
“Whether or not that was an aggressive behaviour, it’s hard to say. The cat coming back to scope things out isn’t necessarily aggressive behaviour either. All cats are naturally curious.
“This behaviour, of a cat returning to an area where they know there’s food, isn’t necessarily unusual. However, its confidence around people certainly is.”
Potter said Low did the right thing by staying inside and making noise.
Alberta Fish and Wildlife said it’s believed this is the first time the cougar was spotted in the area. Officers recommend people travel in groups and carry bear spray.