A conservation officer was called on Friday morning after a cougar was seen on the deck of a house.
Don Gemmell said he heard coyotes barking near his home on Simpson Road at 7:50 that morning.
“The coyotes you normally hear only at night were just going nuts,” he said.
The neighbour’s dog, Caesar, was also barking at his home.
When he looked outside, he saw the cougar on his deck and called the conservation officer.
Gemmell said he thought the cougar may have wanted to prey on his neighbour’s goats.
The cougar eventually ran off, past the neighbour’s goats, and slammed into a deer fence. It continued running along the fence before disappearing near Simpson Road.
When conservation officer Bob Hamilton arrived around 8:30 a.m., he followed the cougar tracks but did not expect to find the cat.
The cougar was in a bush only a metre away from him when it jumped a metre high.
“That was too close for comfort,” he said later.
Hamilton shot and killed the cat.
An examination later showed the medium-sized adult female cougar had been feeding on deer and domestic pets before the incident.
“It was too full to climb a fence,” he said.
Gemmell said cougars — sometimes referred to as ghost cats — are seldom seen in the area, although they are present.
“They’re probably around here more than we know,” he said.