St. Albert cougar encounter leaves woman rattled

SidneyCushman screamed as the cougar tensed its muscles and lunged out of the trees, eyes fixed squarely on her own.

"It was pure panic. It was terrifying," said Cushman, 21,who remainson edgedays after the close encounter on the outskirts of Edmonton.

"It runs through my mind a lot," she said during a Wednesday interview on CBC's Radio Active."I can hardly sleep at night because I can't stop thinking that we shouldn't be unharmed."

Cushman and her boyfriend, Devan Hall, were out walking their dogin a wooded area just outside St. Albert on April 7.

Like always, once they were far enough along the trails, they took their German shepherd mix off-leash and let him run free in a clearing.

As the dog rootedthrough the tall grass in search of prairie dogs, Cushman spotted a lone animal, about 100 metres away, along the northeast edge of the clearing.

She thought it was a fox, but did a double take as the animal dartedacross the field in their direction.

"My stomach dropped,"said Cushman. "It was too huge and fast to be a fox."

Unnerved, they starting marching as calmly as they couldback to their car.

About 100 metres from safety, Cushman turned to see the cougar barreling towards them,"as if in the middle of a hunt kill."

"His instinctual run had kicked in. It's not like we could slowly back away."

Panicked and defenceless, they ignored what they had been told about running away from cougars and sprintedfor the parking lot.

It took seconds to make it to the car, but it felt like an eternity.

Winded and struggling to keep up, for a few moments Cushman considered letting her dog run ahead, so that the cougar would attack her instead.

"I was terrified as I realized I was the slowest one," said Cushman."We felt extremely lucky and extremely shocked that no one was hurt."

Cushman saidthey contacted police and animal control,and beeped their horn as they sped away,in an attempt to warn others. They have yet to see any advisories about the animal.

Cushmanwanted to share her story, so others won't be caught off guard.

"Now we know, we'll bring some sort of defence next time for sure, even if it's in area where you wouldn't expect it."