Cougars On My Mind

By Maryanna Gabriel

It is this time of year when chickadees seem to ask for more seeds as they perch on the outside rail facing my dining table looking expectantly at me. Of course I comply. I don't remember it being so deeply cold and for so long although we have had bigger snowfalls. In two feet of snow a recent trip to the bottom of the property was somewhat startling. Lying absolutely headless was a yearling deer. I stared in horror. At first I thought it had been brought down by a dog. A survey of the tracks revealed kitty-kat prints the size of my closed fist. Eeps. 

A neighbour came. As we swapped cougar stories he examined the intact hind legs and abdomen. He said the brains are like a nice, crunchy snack. "A dog would have gone for the leg tendons with the chase whereas a cougar goes for the neck," he pronounced.


It puts a whole new slant on going out to the wood pile. Life on the frontier....