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Cougar pays visit to rural yardLINDA DYCK PHOTOLinda Dyck took this shot as a cougar ran right through her backyard in Plum Coulee on Mother’s Day.Gopher hunters, family startledBy Alexandra PaulWHAT’S six feet long, has big feet, a round face and nice eyes?Plum Coulee landscape designer Linda Dyck will break into a laugh if you ask her. She’ll say, “That’s the cougar that ran through my backyard Sunday.”Dyck took a photo of the animal loping past her barely 10 metres from where she was standing in front of her home.Provincial wildlife officials who’ve seen it are hoping the shutter bug invites them to check out the yard for cougar signs.Manitoba Conservation biologist Bill Watkins said the province confirms one or two sightings a year, but usually in remoter areas.This time, the photo is so clear that there’s no mistake — and that makes it special.“This would be the first authenticated sighting in Plum Coulee and this is only the second sighting of a cougar that is definitely a cougar. I get all kinds of pictures with little grey blobs. This... I’m fairly certain it’s real.” Watkins said.As for why it’s in farm country, pasture lands are filled with cougars’ local fare — white-tailed deer.Dyck had a camera ready because husband Abe Dyck, a retired farmer,had seen a cougar headed to the yard from an old farmyard a mile west. The land’s flat. You can see for miles.At the same time, a couple of gopher hunters from Winkler tore up the gravel into their driveway and busted out of their vehicle to warn them of the surprise visitor.“They must have taken him by surprise because he jumped out of the bush they went into,” Dyck said. The hunters told her about heading into some bush in an old farmyard converted into a wildlife refuge on the lookout for gophers.They stumbled onto a cougar bed instead, startling the animal into jumping up and running away — in the direction of the Dycks’ yard.“It was Mother’s Day and the guys were worried there would be kids here. Half an hour later there would have been,” Dyck said.Instead of a gun, Dyck grabbed a camera and headed outdoors for the shot.“I thought he’d be at a distance,” Dyck said, recounting the experience as the animal suddenly appeared to jump like a kangaroo right past her.“I froze. I was so shocked at the size of him. I expected a little bobcat. Hewas huge. I thought, ‘Maybe I should be running for my life instead of taking a picture.’”Seems the cougar was thinking the same.The animal shot through the couple’s farmyard — between the house and barn — so fast that Linda barely had time to snap the shutter.The cougar hasn’t been spotted since then in the Plum Coulee area. The couple wants Manitoba Conservation to capture and relocate the animal, if possible.alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca
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