An eight-year-old U.S. girl was recovering Monday after being attacked and bitten by a cougar off northern Vancouver Island. The attack occurred Sunday on Compton Island, a tiny island about 24 kilometres east of Port McNeill and about 350 kilometres northwest of Victoria. Rita Hilsabeck of Reno, Nev., was on a kayaking trip with her parents and five other people when the cougar pounced on her just after the group had returned from a pre-dinner paddle on the first day of a six-day tour. It was odd, really, there were people all around her when it happened, her father, Chuck, 52, said Monday at Port McNeill and District Hospital. Shes got a lot of stitches and shes got soreness, but shes very tough and resilient and shes going to be okay. Ritas most serious wounds are deep gashes around her neck, where the cougar grabbed her, he said. She also had to have some stitches on her arm and lower back. Three members of the group remained on Compton Island after the incident, along with Jason Doucet, a guide with Northern Lights Expeditions of Bellingham, Wash. Rita was just near the kayaks and cougar came up and just picked her up on the beach and started dragging her up towards the woods, Mr. Doucet said. The others raised enough of a commotion to startle the big cat into dropping the child. But the cougar, a large male weighing about 30 kilograms, moved only a short distance away and found a perch a few metres up a spruce tree in the middle of the camp area. Mr. Doucet said the animal was still in the tree when it was shot. It managed to move a few steps and then died in the middle of the camps makeshift kitchen area. Conservation officer Greg Kruger said the animal appeared healthy, but will be tested for rabies and several other conditions. It was instinct that led the animal to linger in a tree after being scared away from the person it had set upon, he said. Once theyre startled thats a natural defence mechanism, they go up a tree. Just seconds before the attack, Charles Eisner, 11, of Tucson, Az., and Rita had been playing together on the beach. They found a crab and were trying to decide what to name it and then 30 seconds later, she was grabbed by the cougar, he said. The attack was quick, he said. It was way too fast. He mother, Barbara Atwood, said the experience was horrifying. It happened so quickly, it was very hard to register in a circumstance like that, she said. Ms. Atwood said her family plans to continue with the six-day kayak trip. The attack was very scary but we know its very rare and extremely unlikely anything else would happen like this, she said. A wildlife official said Monday it is rare for a cougar to attack a human. Cougars have killed 11 people in British Columbia, 10 of them children, since 1900. Most cougar attacks occur on Vancouver Island, which has the highest concentration of British Columbias cougars. There have been 15 cougar attacks on Vancouver Island since 1970, including three deaths. The last fatal attack occurred in August, 1996, when a 36-year-old woman died near Princeton, about 200 kilometres east of Vancouver, while fighting off a cougar that mauled her son. Cindy Parolin, an experienced outdoorswoman, was killed by the 27-kilogram cougar when she rushed to defend her six-year-old son Steven. He was attacked by the big cat after it spooked his horse and he fell off. Ms. Parolin, 36, went at the cougar with a stick and it turned on her, allowing two of her other children to carry Steven away and get help. The family had just started a horseback camping trip when the attack occurred. Copyright © 2002 Bell Globemedia Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Port McNeill man attacked by a cougar Sunday did the right thing when he hit the big cat, a Conservation Officer Service spokesperson said Monday. According to Lance Sundquist, South Coast Conservation Officer Service manager, a man in his late 20s was walking along a road in Port McNeill around 3 a.m. Sunday when he was bitten on the leg by a cougar. Sundquist said the man hit the cougar with his fist and the cougar ran off. The man went home and then to the Port McNeill hospital where he was treated for four puncture wounds. He was released a short time later. In a cougar attack, fighting the animal is always the right thing to do, Sundquist said. This incident is fairly typical of a cougar attack or incident. They tend to be ambush attacks. You dont see the cougar in advance of the attack. The cougar pounces so there isnt a lot of opportunity in advance of an attack. The way to survive is to fight (it) off, and if the cougar departs you still have to remain very vigilant because theyre quite persistent once theyve got their mind focused on attacking prey. Theres been a number of instances where somebody has managed to fend off a cougar and then the cougar as returned to try to reclaim the prey. While the attack happened within the community, it was close to a wooded area. Police and conservation officers responded to the attack. Sundquist said several volunteers with hounds joined the searched for the big cat Sunday morning and into the early afternoon. A further two-hour search Monday morning turned up nothing. At this point, we are relying on any further sightings that might come forward before we would deploy the hounds, he said. A public notice was put out on Sunday telling people about the attack and advising them to be careful. A conservation officer was taking a cougar-awareness presentation through local schools. Sundquist wouldnt speculate on the age of the cougar but said this is getting to be the time of year when juvenile cats, around the year-and-a-half age, are starting to move off from their mothers. Our normal response in a circumstance where a cat has come in contact with a person would be the cat would be destroyed, he said. That would be the approach that we would be looking at here. - See more at: courierislander/news/local/pt-mcneill-man-attacked-by-cougar-1.120699#sthash.MDcnYxiZ.dpuf © Copyright 2013
Posted on: Sun, 20 Oct 2013 04:19:47 +0000
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