Skip to content

Cougar kills house cat in Ucluelet

‘You should not have your cats outside anywhere, but certainly not in Ucluelet or Tofino’
12127499_web1_180606-UWN-Cougar-kills-cat-Ucluelet_1
The B.C. Conservation Officer Service’s Acting Sergeant for Central Vancouver Island Stuart Bates said the COS received a report of a cougar killing a cat near the Ucluelet Co-op on Wednesday, May 31.

A cougar has killed a domestic cat in Ucluelet.

The B.C. Conservation Officer Service’s Acting Sergeant for Central Vancouver Island Stuart Bates told the Westerly News the COS received a report of a cougar killing a cat near the Ucluelet Co-op on Wednesday around 11:30 p.m.

He said the COS will monitor the cougar’s behaviour, but has no plans to trap or remove the animal because cougars are naturally active at night.

“At this point, it was night-active and it skiddaddled out of the area. It didn’t hang out, It just grabbed the cat and left..If a cougar is being day-active, then we’re going to have an issue,” Bates said. “11:30 in the morning versus 11:30 at night is a big difference…Until I get more sightings and find out that this cougar is habituated, like we’ve had before in Ucluelet where they’ve become day-active and they’re hanging out, then we deal with it.”

He hopes the incident serves as a reminder to West Coast residents to never leaves their pets unattended outside.

“You should not have your cats outside anywhere, but certainly not in Ucluelet or Tofino,” he said adding there are a variety of predators in the area like wolves, cougars, eagles, racoons and owls. “They resemble the small prey out there and they will get taken…Hopefully, with this call, everybody puts their house cats away and the cougar learns ‘Oh, there’s no food here’ and it will leave.”

He urges anyone who spots a predator, like a cougar or bear, in Ucluelet to immediately report their sighting to the Conservation Officer Service at 1-877-952-7277.

“People always give us a bad rap they think we’re just going to go shoot it. The more information I have the better decision I can make. I can’t stress that enough,” he said. “As long as wildlife is, as we say, playing by the rules. We don’t come out and remove them. We try to make sure that we control the situation that can make them get worse…The quickest way to get a bear killed is don’t call me, because you’re going to allow it to get habituated and conditioned and then you’re finally going to call me when it starts breaking into structures, at which point I have no choice. If you call me early I can intercede.”



Andrew Bailey

About the Author: Andrew Bailey

I arrived at the Westerly News as a reporter and photographer in January 2012.
Read more