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Cougar population out of control

Most recent Alberta cougar news is of an early August attack of a six-year-old girl along the shoreline trail near the Barrier Lake boat launch in Kananaskis Country. Incredibly, apparently her parents did not have her scratches and puncture wounds treated, nor did they report the incident until the next day.
B02-Bear-spray
Columnist demonstrates range of bear spray — five metres.

Most recent Alberta cougar news is of an early August attack of a six-year-old girl along the shoreline trail near the Barrier Lake boat launch in Kananaskis Country. Incredibly, apparently her parents did not have her scratches and puncture wounds treated, nor did they report the incident until the next day.

Just a week before that, a cougar was spotted in Brooks, a historic first for my home town, as I recall, however the big cats have occasionally strolled down main street of Herself’s home town, Pincher Creek.

But the absolute last straw came six weeks or so ago, when a Stump Ranch neighbour south of Rocky Mountain House captured a picture of a cougar wearing a radio collar on one of his trail-scouting cameras. That was enough to have me checking my bear sprays, and, all of them having passed the best before date, head out to buy new ones.

Bear sprays have been much in the news lately, having become mandatory on the Lake Minnewanka Trail in Banff National Park; many tourists having turned up without sprays to hike into bad bear country, have been turned away by wardens, and one Korean student found in there without a spray was fined $400.

Bear spray canisters should contain 225 g and have a range of five metres (16 feet) . When you buy bear sprays, you have to sign a registry acknowledging you know it is to be used only as last-ditch defense and only against bears. The serial number of your spray is recorded on the registry, apparently so you can be dealt with should the spray be improperly used or disposed of.

So what is bear spray effective against; in particular, will it work on cougars, which is why we carry them when out and about at the Stump Ranch? There are records of bear sprays having routed attacking cougars, so, other than stupid cover your behindedness, why don’t the companies and authorities say so? After the Barrier Lake attack, we were once again treated to the list of dos and don’ts in the event of a cougar confrontation, but nobody says “carry bear spray and give the cat a shot in the gob as soon as it comes close enough.”

Bear spray is very effective on humans. At the start of an Elk River float in B.C. several years ago, our guide reached and rummaged into his duffle bag for something, and shot himself in the face with a bear spray that was missing the safety clip. Randy Tucker and I did the rowing for the two hours and gallons of flushes with ice cold river water before the burning abated and the patient could see well enough to guide again.

I also have personal experience that bear sprays do not work to repel skunks, at least the one I got into a p---ing contest with several years ago. We had just arrived at the Stump Ranch cabin, and I was about to let Red out and say “kennel” when I noticed a flicker of motion under the raised doghouse in the fenced kennel enclosure. So I left the dog in the rig and investigated. We had a skunk under the house and he wasn’t coming out and, while he was there, Red wasn’t going in.

Stupidly, I have decided since, I gave a blast under there with a bear spray. Nothing much happened, but the wood pussy did come slowly out from under there and I gave him another shot or two. As he came slowly right toward me, I noticed his eyes seemed filmy. I now know that skunks have an extra eyelid, a nictating membrane, which protects their eyes against various irritants, possibly even their own spray. Mercifully, this was one forgiving skunk; he strolled out of the kennel and away, never once reversing, loading up and letting me have it with his own spray, like I probably deserved.

Some cats have the nictitating membrane, but I can’t find out if the includes cougars.

It is now at least two decades since we decided, without having any idea how many cougars we really had in Alberta, to change their status from fur-bearing varmints to big game animals, and imposing absurdly low harvest quotas. Now we know — or should, with all the cougar studies and radio collaring — that we have far too many cougars in Alberta, and that they have become emboldened to regard humans, particularly small humans, as prey. Cougars are out of control and status and regulation changes are urgently needed to return them to the rarely seen and seldom threatening to humans creatures they once were.

How do you legally dispose of out-dated bear sprays? I’ll not be using mine on salads as some back-country guides claim to do. Apparently blasting away “in a safe place” is an option, then disposing of the empty canisters in accordance with regulations that are very hard to find.

Bob Scammell is an award-winning outdoors writer living in Red Deer.