Kamloops dad gets young son to safety during cougar attack

A father-and-son fishing trip in the Kamloops area last week went from relaxing to harrowing when a cougar attempted to attack them.

Father Mark Bailey had taken his four-year-old son to fish at Deep Lake Hike on Oct. 9, a moderately-trafficked loop trail and lake located near Kamloops.

“It was a really nice day,” he said. “The weather was pretty nice and it was good spending time with my son.”

The pair were walking back to their vehicle at 5:30 p.m. around dusk when their enjoyable Sunday afternoon ended abruptly.

Seemingly out of nowhere, an adult cougar appeared and pounced at the little boy, but missed.

“My son was busy doing little runs behind me and talking when this big brown thing came up a slope,” Bailey said. “It took me by surprise and at first I thought it was a dog. Once I realized it was a cougar I thought ‘oh my god’ and went into protection mode, super focussed on getting out safely.”

“It got so close I could have kicked it.”

Bailey said the cat timed its pounce wrong and missed the boy before running off about 20 feet away.

He quickly put his son on his shoulders and was kneeling down to get his knife when the big cat circled back.

“I don’t think my son realized how dangerous of a situation it was,” Bailey said. “He said ‘I think it wants our fish’ and I told him to be quiet and remained focussed on what was happening.”

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With his son on his shoulders, fishing poles in his left hand and his knife in his right, Bailey yelled as loud as he could and the cat ran off again to about 50 feet away.

“I saw its head sticking out from a sagebrush,” he said. “It was moving its head from side to side while I yelled at it and let it know what I was going to do to it if it came back."

Bailey said he walked backwards for the next ten minutes until he got to the vehicle and put his son safely in his car seat.

Bailey has spent years enjoying outdoor spaces in and around Kamloops and has never encountered a cougar before.

He said Deep Lake Hike is roughly 30 kilometres south of where a Kamloops couple came face-to-face with two cougars last month.

Samantha Penzie and her partner went camping Sunday night, Sept. 4, with their truck and camper 23 kilometres up Jamieson Creek Main Haul Road when they found themselves face-to-face with two cougars and had to immediately leave the area.

READ MORE: Kamloops couple has close encounter with pair of cougars

Bailey called Conservation Officer Services once he was in the vehicle to report the incident and plans to post a sign on the trailhead to warn others.

The incident has not deterred him from looking forward to future trips to the great outdoors but has made him more aware of his surroundings and more prepared for future encounters with dangerous wildlife.

“Everything I did was right except for kneeling down to grab my knife from my pack,” he said. “I should have already had it on me because you are not supposed to make yourself small in these situations.

“You get big, you yell, and you never take your eyes off the animal.”

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