A family is shaken up after a cougar attack south of Nanaimo resulted in the deaths of their two goats.
"My daughter started walking to the goat pen and she screamed, 'Mom, there's a cougar!'…" said Michelle Grubac. "I told them to get inside and called my husband to get out. My daughter said she saw the cougar hop the fence and I could see my goats on the ground and they were already dead."
On Tuesday, July 30, at around 7 p.m., Grubac was outside with her two children, ages 9 and 11, along with one of her daughter's friends, when her daughter saw the cougar leaving the area.
The family's White Rapids area property has an indoor enclosure with locking doors and cameras where the goats are secured each night at 9 p.m. What Grubac didn't expect was an attack during the day, just an hour after her daughter and her friend was inside the enclosure petting the animals.
"We had gotten there right when it happened. Their necks were bloody, but they were not pulled apart at all – nothing. So we had just got there when it happened…" she said. "Sometimes my son goes out there by himself, as my daughter did with her friend. It's so scary … I'm terrified, I am terrified to let my kids out, even to go see our other animals out there. I don't even want to let my dog out."
After the incident, Grubac said she will be adding an electric fence and consider a livestock guardian dog, advice recommended to her by the B.C. Conservation Officer Service.
"We are doing the things we need to do, but obviously we need to do more."
Gabriela De Romeri, WildSafeBC's communications coordinator said electrified fences are the only true way to keep cougars out.
"If you do see a cougar it's important to keep calm, and never run," De Romeri said. "Try to make yourself seem as large as possible, stick together as a group and back away slowly."
Unlike with some wild animals, she said eye contact doesn't matter.
"If you have any small pets or really small children with you, pick them up. Keep dogs on leash and you can make vocalizations, be loud, try to scare that animal out of there while backing away."
If a cougar does attack, her advice is to fight back.
"Just do whatever you can," De Romeri said. "Bear spray can be used on cougars and we do recommend carrying that in cougar country."
