Ep. 14 -- Lions, Wha? & Bears, Oh My!

12/10/2019

Meet our featured players . . .

In this episode we talk with islanders who have encountered big beasts roaming Gabriola's forests.

How is it possible? Surely these people are spinning yarns!

But when you think that this island is about the size of New York’s Manhattan Island – and all the people and goings on that can exist in the concrete jungle, why couldn’t some mysterious critters carve out a life here and largely avoid detection?

Thank you to: BC Wildlife Conservation Officer Dan Eichstadter, Allana Dawson Thorne, Mitch Burns, Melinda Wilde, Ben Finn, Kathy Gurr, Nelson Thorne, Hinterland Who's Who and Sir David Attenborough on BBC Earth.

Music Credit: Excerpts from: Scapes 8, 10 and 11 from the CD “Lullabies for Big Eyes” by Gabriola’s The Kerplunks. Used with permission. To purchase and download your copy of the album or selected tunes, please go to https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/thekerplunks5

For tips on keeping wildlife safe and alive: https://wildsafebc.com/

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3 Comments

about. . .

“Straight Outta Gabriola” is a free-ranging, Society & Culture podcast series featuring slice-of-life stories, characters and culture from one of the alt-living/hippy Gulf Islands out on Canada’s West Coast.

A new episode every 3 weeks or so.

Not following the same formula for every show, featuring interviews, music, walks along the beaches and rambles into the forests of Gabriola Island with your host, Ken Gurr and special guests.

If you're island curious, this show is for you.

Host, Ken Gurr has lived on Gabriola Island, BC for over 20 years. He enjoys chatting with people, is always up for a caper and a good laugh. He's traveled the world and spent time on other small islands and sees common threads to all islanders.

Dave O Rama link

12/12/2019 02:33:32 pm

Many years ago I was walking with a friend at midnight up where the Legends now is. It was just a forested area at the time and close by there was a fresh water source and caves at the top of the ridge.

As we were entering the woods we could hear some of the neighbours dogs just going off. There were at least three dogs and they were barking at the top of their lungs and would not stop.

Moments later we entered into a large patch of alder trees and instantly we were completely overwhelmed by the smell of cat piss. It was so powerful that it felt like we had entered into a room, like a barn, that was completely saturated in cat urine smell.

Two years ago, I found cougar prints in the snow heading across my neighbour's front lawn toward a cut in through the trees that led to a rough public access trail. I live on the corner of El Verano and across the street is bush and bordering the bush is Three Gates Farm. The rough public access goes between a large field at the end of El Verano Turnabout. The entrance is on South Rd. directly across from bush. In the bush across the street from the trail there is a fresh water source that empties into the Brickyard marsh. A cougar can walk through that bush and circumnavigate the Three Gates Farm, and then move through the vacant property next door which is 35 acres of woods that leads up to the caves on the ridge, up where they put the Legands. There is a fresh water source up there. Then there is a spring that comes off the vacant property next to Three Gates and that feeds the farm and the marsh at Brickyard.

Four years ago I saw a neighbour on Ferne, who is just overlooking the marsh, post on Facebook that she was watching a cougar flush the blackberry bushes down in the marsh. She figures the cougar was flushing quail. Which are plentiful around this area.

I have other stories people have told me about finding dens, and trails leading from fresh water sources.

I have always known cougars exist on this island.

I moved here in the summer of 1996 and spent my first summer living in a tepee on Mudge Island, and that whole summer there was a cougar running around those islands. It was eventually shot on Valdez. So a cougar got onto Mudge and was later killed on Valdez.

This one had a tracking collar on it so authorities could see its path. We live in the most cougar dense area of the world. These things can get around. The island is full of prey. Never mind they also chance of hitching rides on log booms, cougars are great swimmers. Just search You Tube for video of cougars swimming from one island to another around Vancouver Island. There are a few out there.

I have always been dumbfounded by the general culture of denial here on Gabriola Island. It's definitely some profound cognitive dissonance

Ken

12/12/2019 02:41:38 pm

Thanks for that account Dave --

and yes I know those cliffs and have heard cougar screams from there (above us, but not in the tree tops or sky) and in the wind you could think it was a sharp-shinned or red-tailed hawk, but noooooo!

knockemdead.com link

12/24/2019 06:08:12 pm

One of the reasons why I don't go to zoos or other places where there are wild animals is because of thew possibility of having an interaction with them and you are not prepared. I guess, that is one of the worst situations that can happen to me because I suck at behaving in front of animals. I am afraid of lions and bears so I wouldn't know how to react in front of them! By the way, I've learned new stuff from your post! Perhaps, I need to get used to it.

Ep. 14 -- Lions, Wha? & Bears, Oh My!

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