Odd puma behaviour? Vancouver Island woman slams door on curious cougar

Cougar at Carmanah Lighthouse station on the West Coast Trail. A Vancouver Island woman was alarmed to find a cougar staring straight at her — separated by only a screen door — on Thursday afternoon.

A Vancouver Island woman was alarmed to find a cougar staring straight at her - separated by only a screen door - on Thursday afternoon.

"I ran toward the glass door and slammed it shut, and he turned away and ran," said Riley Nicholson from her Creekside Glen townhouse on Atkins Road, which backs onto a ravine.

"What if he had just jumped through the screen?" she said. "That was scary - I think people need to know."

Nicholson was packing up to move when she saw the big cat on her patio about 4:45 p.m., and she wondered whether it was attracted by residual cooking odours caused by having her oven set on "clean," or by her cat, which had been outside playing a short time earlier

The 39-year-old was packing up bathroom things when she heard her cat, Shadow, suddenly make frantic scratching sounds on the hardwood floor.

"I could hear her freaking out," said Nicholson, who said she thought the cat may have burned herself on the stove. Then she saw the cougar. "His head was the size of my cat."

She jumped into her car and drove a short distance to the home of a strata council member, who sent a message to all residents about a cougar on the prowl.

Conservation officials were also contacted.