Moose Jaw police track down, euthanize cougar

A cougar that was captured on a doorbell camera in Moose Jaw on Monday was tracked down by police and euthanized early Tuesday.

Bruce Reid, a compliance manager for the southwest part of the province for the Conservation Officer Service, said it was the best route available to conservation officers.

“Safety is the biggest consideration,” he said. “It’s very unfortunate that the animal was put down. In a perfect world, it would have left the area on its own and would be out happily going along. But it demonstrated over in excess of 24 hours that isn’t what was happening.”

In a news release early Tuesday, the Moose Jaw Police Service said it used a drone to find the cat and then called in conservation officers.

Reid said the animal was found under a deck in the yard of a house near the former location of the Moose Jaw Civic Centre.

“The conservation officers arrived about 3:30 (a.m.) and a plan was put into effect to remove the cat,” Reid said. “Before they could actually get the plan fully in operation, the cat made an attempt to escape and was euthanized at that point.”

The cougar was seen on a doorbell camera on James Street early Monday and then was spotted a few times throughout the day.

At one point, parents of children who attend King George and St. Agnes elementary schools were asked to pick up their children instead of letting them walk home.

Reid said the cougar’s unwillingness to leave the city over the course of the day wasn’t typical.

“Cats are elusive,” he said. “They like to be by themselves. They don’t really like to be around people and this one was demonstrating that, for one reason or another, it was in a residential area.”

Reid said conservation officers have two non-lethal methods available to them in these situations.

One is to try to get the animal to leave the city on its own. That method wasn’t practical in this situation because there were too many places for the animal to hide — and authorities had lost track of it more than once during the day.

The second option is tranquilizing the animal and relocating it, but Reid said that wasn’t viable in this case either.

“Tranquilizing is not as smooth a process as one would think after watching it on television shows,” he said. “There’s some considerable prep time to get the equipment ready. You have to have (the animal) in a place where it’s not going to escape.

“It takes four to seven minutes for the drugs to take effect on a normal animal. This one would have been pretty excited and revved up, so it may have taken longer … In the time it would take to go down, if it ran on us — especially in the dark — there’s a very good chance we wouldn’t find it.

“While unfortunate, (euthanizing the cat) was deemed to be the most appropriate action.”

Reid said the remains of the animal will be sent away for a necropsy to determine if there was something that caused it to behave in the way it did.

The cat weighed just under 100 pounds, meaning it was a young adult. Reid said it might have been displaced by a larger cat or by its own family, forcing it to find its own territory.

However, to find one in an urban setting is unusual.

“(Is it) common that it’s travelling? Yes. (Is it) common that it’s travelling in an urban environment? No. That’s not normal,” he said.

The cats feed on deer, elk, rabbits, porcupines and other small game.

Reid said people who encounter cougars should make sure the animal knows they are not prey. He suggested making themselves look big, making loud noises and possibly throwing an object in the direction of the cat. Then, the people should back away.

He has never heard of cougars attacking humans in Saskatchewan but if that happens, his advice is to fight back “with everything they’ve got.”

“Don’t give up and once they’re free of the cat, they should do their best to keep track of it because like any other cat, they’re persistent and they’re sneaky,” Reid said.