Kaleden school on alert after cougar sighting

KALEDEN — Students and staff at Kaleden Elementary School were placed on alert Wednesday after a cougar appeared to have killed a deer in the community.

Local resident Judy Scott said she spotted the cougar Monday night near her vineyard at the south end of Oak Avenue while she was driving home at about 10:30 p.m.

“He was in sort of a bush on Oak and just jumped out,” she said. “I stopped. He went across to our vineyard, tried to get in and couldn’t.”

The cougar then turned back and ran up Maple Avenue towards the hills. A dead deer was discovered at the scene the next morning.

Scott said she contacted wildlife officials, who suggested there was no real cause for alarm.

“They believe he’s doing the behaviour that cats do. He was hunting at night — it wasn’t during the day — and he had taken a deer down,” she said.

“We have millions of deer in this community, so it’s not unlike- ly that a predator won’t come into the village.”

Scott said the cougar was not aggressive toward her at all. However, she decided to contact her neighbours and the school, especially with Halloween on Friday night.

Heather Rose, principal of Kaleden Elementary, said the school sent out an email alerting students’ families about the cougar sighting. A notice was also posted on the school’s front door, and playground supervision was increased.

“We’ve stepped up the vigilance around the area. We haven’t heard anything else (about the animal),” Rose said. “At this point, we feel we’ve done everything that we can do.”

Barb Leslie of the B.C. Conservation Service office in Penticton said it’s not uncommon to hear about cougar sightings in Kaleden.

“We do get complaints from time to time about cougars killing deer in the Kaleden area,” she said. “Normally, if they’re not showing any aggression towards people or no pets are going missing, we just monitor the situation.”

Leslie said anyone spotting a cougar in the community should contact the provincial Report a Poacher and Polluter (RAPP) hotline at 1-877-952-7277. This will allow the Conservation Service, in partnership with WildSafeBC, to track such sightings in the area.