An Ahousaht family had an unwelcome visitor to their home in the early hours of Sept. 29. At about 3 a.m. on Sunday morning a cougar visited the home of Floyd Campbell Jr. and ripped out the screen door trying to gain entry.
“We were sleeping in the living room with our kids and a couple of my brother’s boys,” Campbell told Ha-Shilth-Sa. It was “the one night we didn't put the blinds down or lock the upper door.”
Campbell said he moved all the kids to the bedroom as fast as he could without waking them.
“I didn't wake them up. I picked them up and moved them; didn't want them to be scared or crying. Needed them to be quiet.”
The family called out for help on the VHF, and a number of men came to their aid.
“It left when Jonathon Mark came out to my house. Glad his car is so loud.” Alfred Dick and Luke Swan Jr. also rushed to help the family.
Ahousaht members and residents of Flores Island have had a number of run-ins with cougars of late, and this incident at the Campbell’s comes on the heels of an attack at Cow Bay that sent a 60-year-old woman to hospital. The woman’s spouse fended off the cougar by stabbing it with a spear, and the cougar died of its wound shortly after the attack.
See our story: http://www.hashilthsa.com/news/2013-09-09/cougar-attacks-woman-near-ahou...
On June 19, surveillance cameras at Ahousaht General Store captured footage of a cougar swimming across the inlet to the dock; the cougar proceeded up the ramp to the store but turned and ran when a man armed only with a life ring approached it from the top of the ramp. See the video at http://youtu.be/6WiNgeiaLaw
Last September a full grown cougar attacked John Frank Jr., 38, while he was working at the gravel pit.
See our story: http://www.hashilthsa.com/news/2012-09-12/starving-cougars-wreak-havoc-n...
Speculation in the community is that the cougars are starving because of a lack of deer on the island.
