Posted on 08/04/2002 1:46:13 PM PDT by Reaganwuzthebest
VICTORIA (CP) -- A 61-year-old man won a life-and-death struggle with a cougar outside a small northern Vancouver Island village, killing the animal with his 7.5-centimetre pocket knife.
Dave Parker was jumped from behind while walking on an industrial road two kilometres south of Port Alice, a village of 1,300 about 370 kilometres north of Victoria.
The retired pulp-mill worker was attacked Thursday evening by a 45-kilogram adult male cat, conservation officer Ken Fujino said.
"It was thin but by no means starving," Fujino said from Port Hardy, the nearest sizable town.
"There was no indications as to any physical injuries that we could see that may have provoked the attack."
Parker was being mauled but managed to get to his folding pocket knife.
"A lot of people carry knives out here, or bear spray," said Port Alice Mayor Larry Pepper, a friend of Parker. "People are quite conscious of the fact there's cougars here."
Pepper said Parker managed to turn on the attacking cougar and slit its throat.
Despite extensive wounds, Parker managed to walk about a kilometre to a forest mill's log-sorting area. Late-shift workers rushed him to Port Alice's tiny hospital.
" Because of the seriousness of his injuries they took him by ambulance to Port Hardy and flew him down to the hospital (in Victoria)," said Fujino.
Parker was undergoing surgery Friday to repair his wounds and was expected to recover in the intensive-care unit. He was listed in critical but stable condition.
Pepper said Parker liked to hike and was in good physical condition.
RCMP Const. Jeff Flindall said police found Parker's knife next to the carcass of the dead cougar.
"It is a pocket knife and it is approximately three inches long," Flindall said from Port Alice.
Fujino said there have been a spate of cougar sightings around Port Alice in recent weeks.
"Generally as a whole cougar attacks are fairly rare," he said.
However, the village was the scene of a serious cougar attack two years ago.
A Seattle tourist was cycling outside Port Alice when he was jumped by an injured cougar.
A passing motorist saw the man struggling with the cat and waded in to chase it away. The animal was later tracked and killed by conservation officers.
A good idea might be to pass a law that all residents in these areas with big kitty cats should be REQUIRED to carry a bag of purina cat chow at all times. If one them gets attacked, this person could then negotiate his life for that delicious bag of corn feed and meat by products. How could kitty turn down the offer?
theres quite a few right in the SF bay area. In Palo Alto there was one on the loose for about 7 hours after first being seen in neighborhood. Then a PA officer found it in a tree and killed it with her AR.
Actually, something to be aware of in many places.
Just across the river from us, in Illinois, a hunter found one that weighed just over 90 lbs. (Cougars are not indigenous to the Midwest.)
Homa Sap is hardly an endangered species in Kalifornia ;)
These cats either fear man, or don't look on him as being tasty. In every investigated attack on record, the cat was either sick, starving, or an escaped pet.
At least this man's "lack of compassion" did not cause the cat to continue starving to death over the course of weeks (or bleeding to death slowly). Maybe you should commend the man for making a swift and merciful kill.
They have feared man for years because in the past they were hunted. That's why there needs to be limited hunts at least once in a while otherwise eventually they will have no fear whatsoever.
There may even be a few in the Northeast hidden away. These parts are loaded with deer and other game they like.
Wonder if it was somebody's pet? I'm not exactly sure about cougars but in many states it's not illegal to keep wild animals like big cats.
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