A puma crept the length of Foul Bay Road on swift paws. Silently it crept through the crisp early-morning air in search of its new prey until, finally, it pounced… right into an empty parking lot.
A parking lot on Camosun’s Lansdowne campus.
The incident took place in October of 2015, while campus security was conducting its routine patrol of the grounds. Protocol was followed and the sighting was reported to the appropriate authorities. The cougar, according to media reports at the time, appeared healthy and uninjured and was observed entering a wooded area nearby before police arrived on the scene.
Given that the incident occurred at approximately 1:10 in the morning, there were no injuries to students or staff; since this cougar was sighted, there have been no further reports of the feline on campus. But the situation has brought a new level of awareness about wild animals on campus to the students at Camosun.
Camosun cougars
Camosun College security manager Byron Loucks says the college knew about the cougar and alerted students about the situation.
“Yes, we were aware of it,” he says. “We sent out a notification on our Camosun Mobile Safety App.”
Students and staff can only wonder what became of the cougar after it wandered off into the woods. Saanich Pound officer Susan Ryan says their area of expertise lies more with domestic animals, but they still know what to do if a cougar is spotted.
“It’s an immediate response from either employees of the pound or the police department if we’re off duty,” Ryan says. “Normal procedure would have been for us to attend or police to attend. Public safety is number one, so we make sure everybody on campus is safe. We go and we try to confirm the sighting and get as much information as possible, then we contact the BC Conservation Service.”
Saanich mayor Richard Atwell says that cougars found in Saanich get taken out of Saanich.
“They get identified, they may go off on their own for a couple weeks, but usually within a few days they’re sighted again,” he says, “and they’re tranquilized and taken out of the urban environment.”
Cougars are a well-known but misunderstood species here on Vancouver Island. They are spotted in both rural and urban areas, such as James Bay, Oak Bay, and Saanich. The cougar in the Camosun incident was not exhibiting any signs of aggression or predatory behaviour before wandering off into the wooded area around the campus; no one really knows what drew it to the college in the first place.
Camosun Digital Communications student Michael Brookhart figures the cougar came to Camosun looking for food.
“As we continue to erase the natural habitat of these creatures, I’m sure the frequency of cougar sightings will continue to increase,” he says.
Cougar sightings have increased throughout BC—and in Victoria, specifically—in recent years. Two cougars were recently trapped and destroyed for killing livestock on a farm; that time they were close to Camosun’s Interurban campus.
Loucks says that cougars are a threat if a student is confronted by one, and that the college has procedures in place for cougar sightings on campus.
“If there is a cougar on campus and spotted during normal school hours, we call 911 and we send out an emergency notification,” he says. “Outside of normal hours, like the situation six months ago, we send out an emergency notification and follow any direction provided to us by emergency responders.”
Despite incidents like this, Brookhart says that he doesn’t feel any more danger on campus. Having grown up here, he says he’s used to it.
“I grew up in Victoria and remember having cougar-safety assemblies every year in school,” he says. “We also had several days of inside play because of cougar sightings during my childhood. I do not feel less safe now that I have heard about the cougar on Camosun’s campus, but I can understand how someone who hasn’t grown up with this issue may feel a little uneasy.”
The deer are here
Seeing a cougar in the city is still pretty unusual, especially in comparison to the region’s deer sightings. Atwell, currently serving his first term as mayor, does not appear to think that cougars are the region’s biggest problem when it comes to wild animals.
“Cougars seem to be fairly well dealt with,” he says. “We have the cougars under control through the police and conservation. I can’t remember the last time a dog or another small animal or child or human was mauled by a cougar, so I think largely the safety for ourselves and our pets from the animals are somewhat under control. Deer is another matter; it’s the deer population that has grown over a large number of years. The deer have caused a lot of damage—damage to crops, damage to gardens, and accidents.”
On September 17, 2015, a dog in Oak Bay was attacked by a deer in its front yard, according to a CHEK news report. Attacks like these are not something people generally think of when they see a deer strolling down the street, but deer attacks have in fact become more frequent in the last few years, according to Ryan.
“In the media in the last year or two there have been reports of ‘rogue deer’ going after people and animals,” she says. “Deer don’t normally approach you and go ballistic; there’s usually a reason. It’s usually because they feel threatened, usually when you have a doe that’s recently had fawns and she feels that her fawn is being threatened in some way. A doe would be very protective.”
Relocation questions
When it comes to dealing with these animals, the public generally understands that there are two main options: destroying the animal or relocating the animal. Relocation is generally accepted as a more humane means of dealing with them, but Ryan says it can be tough on the animals.
“As far as relocating deer, it’s extremely stressful on them,” she says. “For cougars, you’re taking them out of their territory.”
Like many cats, cougars are very territorial, so humans coming in and moving them elsewhere could create a whole new set of problems, especially if the area does not have what the animal requires to keep it there. Unlike deer, cougars define their territory with what are known as scratch piles; if a cougar is relocated to an area that already has a resident cougar, the newly relocated animal will simply relocate itself again or risk injury or death at the paws of the current resident of the area.
Atwell has questions about relocation; he wonders where they get relocated to, if there is food there, and how they are kept in that one spot.
“Deer, we don’t have good strategy for that at the moment. The deer don’t stay in any one particular place; they go through the municipality and they’re just munching their way as they go along. There have been a number of efforts that I think have not gone particularly well.”
Atwell points to when municipalities looked to the Capital Regional District to address the problem; he says that one of the approaches was to cull them “like rabbits at UVic,” he says.
“That spent a lot of money and didn’t end up capturing a lot of deer. I don’t think it’s particularly humane either. What they have is this thing called a clover trap. They bait it, the deer come in at night, they panic, and the hunters, if you will, come back and fold the netting over the deer to lay it on the ground. Then they usually kill the deer using a bolt gun to the head, much in the way that cattle are killed.”
It’s important to be educated about what to do if you see a cougar; Camosun caters to a fair number of international students who may not have benefited from cougar-awareness assemblies like students who grew up in Canada. Some may not even know what a cougar or deer looks like, let alone what to do if they encounter one.
Camosun’s Loucks says to call 911 if a cougar is sighted on campus. Ryan says the police are a good place to start if someone ever comes across a particularly unfriendly wild animal.
“Whatever municipality you’re in at the time, that would be where it would be reported, as well as the BC Conservation Service reporting line for human/wildlife conflicts.”
And if the attacker is a hooved culprit rather than a clawed feline, don’t think you’re in the clear. Odd as it may sound, a deer may be more dangerous than people think.
“Deer will fight with their hooves. That’s how they fight,” says Ryan. “You don’t have to worry about them biting or anything, so get away from their feet somehow; protect your head. Like any other wildlife, don’t approach them; keep a safe distance.”