Maureen Lee holds onto her three year-old daughter Maya Espinosa as their dog buddy looks on outside their Squamish, B.C. home Wednesday, June 17, 2009. Maya was attacked by a cougar on Tuesday and received non life threatening injuries. Conservation officers say that they have shot the cougar but continue to investigate the area due to the high number of cougar attacks. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan HaywardJonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press
A B.C. mother is calm as she describes how she flung a 40-kilogram cougar off her three-year-old daughter when the cat attacked as they picked berries on Tuesday evening.
The attack occurred around 7 p.m., as Maureen Lee and her daughter, Maya Espinosa, walked on a trail near their home in Brackendale, B.C., 65 kilometres north of Vancouver.
"I reached over to pick one more berry and I saw something in front of me," Ms. Lee said. "[Maya]was right there, standing two feet away from me. At first I thought it was a dog."
Ms. Lee said the cougar pushed Maya down. That's when her maternal instincts took over.
"I realized what it was, the way he jumped on her so she rolled a couple of times, and then he got on her," she said.
"I tried to wedge myself in between… I stood up and kind of pushed him backwards and as he flung back, I picked her up and started running as fast as I could. I don't know if he was chasing me."
Ms. Lee said she screamed as she ran back up the trail.
"I was so loud and so fast and I didn't want to look back. I don't think it was until we started running that fear really kicked in," she said.
Ms. Lee's neighbour was walking nearby and they took Maya to the neighbour's home, where compresses stemmed the bleeding from scratches and puncture wounds on the little girl's head and left arm. Ms. Lee was uninjured.
Maya was taken to hospital where she was examined and received stitches, and then sent home. She told her mother and father, Pablo, that she thought a bear "got her."
"I think she understands bears more than cougars, but now she know what a cougar is," Ms. Lee said, laughing.
A small woman, Ms. Lee said attacking back was her gut reaction.
"It was just adrenaline and instinct, and I felt I just had to get between her and the cougar."
Maya sat on her mother's lap and held on tightly to two stuffed toys as Ms. Lee described the attack, but exclaimed loudly about the "owies" she had.
She asked her mother to take her back to the scene of the attack Wednesday morning, so they returned for a short walk.
"I don't want her to be afraid of the forest; I don't want her to be afraid of picking berries," Ms. Lee said. "I'm really relieved… It was definitely an intense moment and it turned out really good, considering what happened."
The RCMP and local conservation officers were quickly on the scene, and the cougar - later determined to be a juvenile male about 18 months old - was shot around 10 p.m. after hounds tracked it for two kilometres through backyards.
A necropsy will be carried out to determine the cougar's state of health, along with a DNA test to confirm whether it was the animal that attacked Maya.
Local conservation officer Chris Doyle said this was the first-ever cougar attack he knew of in the Sea to Sky region, which includes the area from West Vancouver to Whistler and Pemberton.
The Squamish area has had 30 encounters between humans and cougars since June 8, with mountain bikers and hikers being followed by the cats, and residents finding them in their backyards. This, he said, was highly unusual and could be due to shrinking prey populations.
The most serious incident before Tuesday evening occurred on June 12, when a cougar attacked, killed and ate a dog being walked on leash on a local trail. The cougar in this attack, an emaciated female, was shot and killed on Saturday.
Mr. Doyle said conservation officers believed four cougars had been the Squamish area, including the two that were shot.
The public had been told to take extra care on local trails since last week.
Ms. Lee said she had been aware of the warnings.
"My mom called me [Tuesday]and warned me about the cougar [sightings]" she said. "As I was running I thought 'Mom's going to kill me!' I walk the trail all the time and I really didn't think I was doing something dangerous."
Provincial ministry of environment officials were expected to hold a public meeting Wednesday night for Squamish residents to discuss the increased cougar activity.