Cougar encounter prompts warning

A cougar closely followed three people on a trail on the slopes of Banff’s Sulphur Mountain for about 20 minutes on Sunday (Oct. 23), prompting wildlife experts to issue a warning for the area.

The warning, which went into effect Tuesday afternoon (Oct. 25), applies to an area on the slopes below the Rimrock Resort Hotel between Mountain Avenue and Kootenay Avenue, including a network of trails there.

“We feel it’s prudent to put a warning out to let people know they need to exercise extra caution in this area,” said Steve Michel, human-wildlife conflict specialist for Banff National Park.

Michel said the incident began around 5 p.m. Sunday when the wild cat followed the three people, but the cougar showed no signs of aggression.

“There may have been a vocalization at one point, but there didn’t appear to be any other behaviour that would lead us to believe a stalking situation was happening,” he said.

“It might have been a curiosity situation or it may have been a female with a kitten that felt uncomfortable, or it may have been protecting a kill, although we searched the area and didn’t find anything,” he added.

Cougars are typically solitary animals, active mainly at night, and attacks on humans are rare. It is believed there are four or five adult cougars in the Banff region.

In addition to this latest incident, there have also been two recent sightings of cougars crossing Mountain Avenue, which bisects an important travel route for animals trying to navigate around the townsite.

A lone cougar was seen on Monday (Oct. 24) morning, while a female cougar with a kitten in tow was spotted crossing the road below the Rimrock Resort on Saturday evening.

Michel said he doesn’t want people to panic because cougars are travelling in the vicinity of the Banff townsite.

“I don’t want to get people unnecessarily worked up, because it’s a big year for cougars in Western Canada and people are anxious and on high alert,” he said.

“It’s very, very common for us to have cougars in that area. For cougars to be crossing Mountain Avenue, in the Sulphur Mountain corridor, is exactly what we expect them to do and exactly what we want them to do.”

Two young cougars, which were initially fitted with collars in Banff following encounters with people in June, ended up being destroyed in July when they got into trouble on neighbouring provincial lands.

The young female cat was euthanized July 19 after she attacked an off-leash dog the night before on the Highline Trail in Canmore in what turned out to be the latest encounter in a string of incidents related to the juvenile cat.

The other cougar attacked a six-year-old Canmore girl as she hiked with her family near Barrier Lake in Kananaskis Country on July 31, forcing her dad to scare off the cat. The cougar was destroyed two days after.

In Pacific Rim National Park on Vancouver Island, a cougar attacked an 18-month-old child on the beach of a popular day-use area at Kennedy Lake in August.

Meanwhile, the warning in Banff was put in place two days after the incident because the hikers had not reported the encounter directly to Parks Canada. Officials had only heard about it third-hand and began investigating.

“If we have a more elevated situation like an encounter, we like to hear about that promptly. We can’t manage trails or people in the park unless we get the details necessary to help us make a decision,” said Michel.

“The safety of other residents and visitors depends on us receiving accurate information in a timely manner.”

Parks Canada provides the following tips on ways to prevent a cougar encounter:

• Travel in groups;

• Keep children close by;

• Make lots of noise;

• Be aware of surroundings, including tracks and scat;

• Carry pepper spray;

• Keep dogs on a leash at all times. Dogs may be seen as prey.

In the event that you do encounter a cougar:

• Never approach the animal and allow it a means of escape;

• Pick up small children and pets;

• Stay calm, don’t run. You may trigger a chase;