B.C. man captures cougar take down on camera

The Canadian wilderness is as brutal as it is beautiful and one B.C. hunter’s photos sums that up.

Ryan Headlee captured the above photos of a cougar taking down its deer dinner on Nov., 4, this past weekend, just north of Kamloops.

“I’ll still be telling this story in 30 years to my grand-babies,” wrote Headlee on a Facebook post that now has more than 14,000 shares.

He explained that he was hunting along forest service roads north of Kamloops Lake when he started to head home.

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He had just past Tranquille on his way back to Kamloops when he called his wife to check in for dinner at about 5 p.m.

“I was talking to her on the Bluetooth when I noticed six does on the side of the road,” explained Headlee.

“I got pretty close in the truck and was just checking them out when, all of a sudden, this mountain lion jumps out of the bush next to me with a loud snarl, and takes down a doe, throwing her to the road!”

Headlee said he scrambled to try to get his phone to take a video, but only managed to snap a few pictures before the cougar dragged its kill off the road.

“The lion dragged the deer off the road in the blink of an eye and was about 12 feet over a little cliff from me. I watched the deer expire and I locked eyes with the cougar for a few minutes until a passing car scared him off,” added Headlee.

“What a feeling to witness such a rare event. The explosive power of this cougar really surprised me.

“This is life in BC.”

@carmenweld
carmen.weld@bpdigital.ca
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