Starving cougar attempted to enter Kamloops museum, day care before it was shot

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February 02, 2016 - 3:07 PM

KAMLOOPS - A young cougar was killed last week after it reportedly broke a window to try and enter a museum on the Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc reservation, near a daycare with people inside.

The incident happened at the Secwepemc Museum near the Little Fawn Daycare around 4 p.m. Jan. 26, Conservation Officer Rob Armstrong says. He says people were indoors when the cougar broke the window which prompted them to phone RCMP.

“The report indicated the cougar had been seen running across a parking lot before breaking one window and attempting to gain access to the building through a second window,” he says.

Armstrong says it was unusual for a cougar to be active in an area with high human traffic. The officer responding to the call found the animal in poor health taking shelter between construction material and the building’s wall.

Because there was a school and a daycare in the immediate area and based on the behaviour of the cougar, the Conservation Officer Service deemed the animal a threat and killed it.

Armstrong says if the cougar were relocated, it would have likely either starved or been killed by a dominant cougar because of its age and condition.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Glynn Brothen at gbrothen@infonews.ca or call 250-319-7494. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.