Tag: panther

Cougars: a man, a truck, a dog, and a gun

A dog like ShaulaWhen I told people I was moving to Monkey Valley, they inevitably thought I needed a man, a truck, a dog, and a gun. In fact, when I first bought the place, I had the man, Hugh McMillan, and we were getting along pretty good. I bought a pickup truck—a beige Ford Ranger that needed some work but was priced well below market value. And my mom gave me a beautiful Siberian husky-malamute cross puppy, with white and grey fur and startling blue eyes, and the cutest curly tail, whom I named Shaula, after the star in the tail of the constellation Scorpio.

But I was still living in the lower mainland, and I found that having a puppy, training her, walking her twice a day, and cleaning up her poop, was not for me. Maybe having a dog in the country would be great, but I wasn’t ready to move yet—in fact, it took Hugh and me two years to install the solar power, pump, and hot water heater. Plus that’s how long it took for two-way satellite internet to be available in Canada—an important component for me in being able to work from Monkey Valley. Shaula and I parted ways long before then. First I took her to the SPCA, but felt so sad at abandoning her, I cried buckets and went to retrieve her. A few weeks later, at the end of my rope again, I sent her by airplane to Williams Lake, where my mom retrieved her and eventually passed her on to a tree planter from Ontario. As far as I know, she lives there now, happily I hope.

A truck like mineJust as having a dog wasn’t for me, the truck didn’t work out that great either. The first winter Hugh and I went up there after snow fall, we found that with only six inches of snow the truck got bogged down, fishtailed around, and refused to go very far up the unplowed logging road. And in the city, driving a stick-shift in stop-and-go traffic drove me nuts. Not to mention trying to park it! I still have nightmares about a certain parking garage on Granville Island! So the truck had to go. I bought a four-wheel drive Geo Tracker instead. Hugh said it was a chick car. But it handled way better in the snow than the pickup, was easy to park, and great on gas.

And, sadly, to my regret and many subsequent wonderings if I made the right decision, when it came time to move to Monkey Valley in 2002, Hugh and I had a parting of the ways. So, long story short, I moved to the wilderness with no man, no truck, and no dog. All that was left was the gun… (to be continued)

Cougars: fears in the dusk

When I first moved to Monkey Valley, my biggest fears were attack by cougars, bears, and humans. I’ve already documented some of the encounters with humans. Pretty innocuous, and nothing like my late-night imaginings of a Charles Manson-like gang bent on my murder.

So it is with cougars. Due to my enjoyment of running in the wilderness, fear of Beautiful cougar of my dreamscougar attack has seemed to be the biggest danger I would realistically face at Monkey Valley. Especially since I usually run at dusk, which is when I imagine the cougar is most active! I remember hearing a few years ago (or was it six years ago now?) that a jogger was attacked on Vancouver Island. The writer of the news story made a joke about joggers persisting in wearing lycra leggings and behaving like deer, as if we are practically begging cougars to attack!

Soon after moving to Monkey Valley, I was driving along a logging road about 10 KM from my home when I was graced with the very rare sight of a cougar in the distance. It crossed the road in front of me, several hundred yards ahead, and leaped up an embankment and disappeared into the woods.

Its grace and power was amazing to behold. It sprang up a bank that was eight feet high or more, compressing its haunches and making the leap in a single bound. It was a beautiful tawny burnished goldy-red colour. Gigantic! I would guess at least six feet long. So incredibly, obviously powerful and alive. The encounter was such a brief flash, but its memory has stayed with me all these years. My impression was that there was no way I was a physical match for this creature that was bigger, stronger, faster, and way wilder than me!

Previously I had imagined the cougar as little bigger than a coyote, and nothing to really be afraid of. But now that I’d seen with my own eyes its size and physical power, I knew that it could kill me with ease, if it chose to. I’ve spent a lot of time contemplating the size of the deer, the cougar’s favourite prey, versus the size of me. Only a few pounds difference, most likely. And the deer run a lot faster than I do!

One of the ways to deal with fear is to find out the truth. I did some research on cougars, reading up on them in Mammals of British Columbia, and learned that their territory can be as big as 100 square miles. I hoped that this meant the chance of my being in the exact spot as the cougar at the same time was very slight. But this didn’t really help assuage my fear. And one spring, Bob Ross of Merritt’s Tri-Ross Construction, who with his son Brent has done a lot of construction work for me at Monkey Valley, found cougar tracks in the mud by the barn. I examined their large size, and was struck with fear again. Clearly I was living in the cougar’s territory. There was no denying the potential for an encounter… (to be continued)