Emotions are running high in Roberts Creek following the death of a 135-pound cougar, which had been killing pets and livestock.
"There's going to be a lot of people upset that this cougar was shot," said resident Sarah Kauffmann, who has feared for her horses since a cougar began stalking and killing neighbouring llamas and sheep three weeks back. "It's really, really sad that a beautiful wild animal had to be killed, but unfortunately that's what had to happen. Nobody's happy about that."
Kauffmann knows firsthand the fear that has stalked the community since news of the cougar began to spread, by word of mouth, following the Aug. 1 cougar slayings of two llamas near Orange Road.
"We've got a creek and a green belt that runs right behind us, so it's kind of a corridor that a lot of animals use," she said. "And I have to walk right past the edge of that to get to where I feed my horses, so it was really intimidating for me to think there could be a large cat in those bushes."
Last Thursday night, Aug. 13, she got her husband to go with her to feed the horses, including her Morgan horse, Gryphon, who she says is particularly sensitive to danger prowling in the shadows.
"I was out there around midnight with Michael and we were feeding [Gryphon], and the way he was acting, it was really obvious that something was wrong," she said. "And I said, 'Michael, that cat is back.'"
The next morning, across the street, three more llamas were dead.
Sunshine Coast conservation officer Dean Miller and houndsman Dean Cook from Vancouver Island came to the scene and ran Cook's hounds, but to no avail.
Then the cat struck again.
Sunday morning, Aug. 16, resident David McIlwraith went outside to check on his hobby farm. Initially, everything looked fine. The miniature horse was at ease, the llamas were "kushing," kneeling down on all fours. But something was off.
"I was going, 'Wow, I can't believe I'm out here and the sheep aren't all over me,'" he said.
The five sheep were family pets, he said. Four of them were orphan sheep and had been bottle-fed. They more or less acted like dogs.
"And I turned around and they were scattered all over the place," he said.
McIlwraith broke the news to his kids: Lindsay, 5, and Euan, 4. Lindsay insisted on seeing the sheep and he showed her them, except for the one which the cat had been feeding on. Even so, one was visibly mauled.
"She goes, 'Oh Dad, that looks like it would have hurt,'" he recounted. "And I said, "You know, we just hope that she was dead before that was done to her.' And she said, 'Yeah that makes sense.'"
On hearing of the latest cougar kill, Cook, who had been on his way back to Vancouver Island, turned around and came back, and Miller came back from a wedding in the city. The "Dean and Dean show," as they jokingly call themselves, ran the hounds that afternoon, and again late into the night.
"We almost gave up," Miller said. "The cougar's just running circles around us trying to avoid us and then finally the dogs kind of spread out and they were able to get it up the tree."
To hear the neighbours tell it, Miller and Cook went well beyond the call of duty that night, as they tracked the cougar through the brambles.
"All I can say is God bless the two guys," McIlwraith said. "Those poor buggers, when they came through the bush, they were just cut to ribbons, the two of them."
The next day, Miller performed a necropsy on the cougar, revealing lots of flesh, as well as hair that matches llama and sheep hair for texture and length.
Yet even with this cougar dead, the fears in Roberts Creek haven't completely subsided. There are rumours of other sightings, with some residents saying they saw a second "big cat," which they believe could weigh as much as 200 pounds.
But while Miller doesn't discount the idea that there could be other cougars in the area, he says that, given cougars' speed, sightings should be taken with a grain of salt.
"We get people reporting coyotes and dogs and stuff as cougars, especially when they're sensitive about [cougars]," he said. "And they're not at fault. I mean, I always see a tail going into the woods, and I'm like, 'Is that a cougar?'"
Creek residents say they're continuing to take precautions. Moreover, backed by Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons, they're calling for some kind of a mechanism to alert them to local cougar sightings.
"Where's that central hub that we need to be calling or a link [to check online]?" McIlwraith asked. "You know, [something which says] there's been an unconfirmed sighting by conservation; however, be aware. It would be great thing. I can't believe that we're the only community that's facing this issue."
