Cougar warning signs are still up around Maxwell Lake and the boardwalk after a Hinton RCMP officer reportedly saw a cougar in the area.

According to Chris Watson, fish and wildlife district officer, the RCMP officer wasn’t 100 per cent clear whether or not it was a cougar she saw, but fish and wildlife officers aren’t taking any chances, so the warning still remains in effect. No other confirmed sightings have been reported.

If there is a cougar in the area, it wouldn’t be the first one of the year for Hinton Sustainable Resource Development (SRD) officers. Watson said they dealt with a cougar in February near the Hamlet of Robb after a cougar attacked and killed a dog on a doorstep, although, even with the help of a houndsman, they were not able to catch it.

If more cougar sightings start coming in, Watson said Hinton SRD are set up to deal with them in a proper manner, but unless the public calls it in, it’s extremely tough to address them efficiently and effectively.

“We have a contracted houndsman here... who is provincially-contracted and in the event we have a recent cougar sighting and it’s right in town, or it shows aggression towards people, we would probably action (him) and pursue the cougar to either relocate it or address the concerns that we have with an aggressive cat, and decide what course of actions we could take at that time,” said Watson.

He said they have other options as well, such as using a leg snare or culvert trap, especially if the cougar was on a kill, although he says a cougar protecting a kill isn’t necessarily a problem cougar.

Many times a cougar will run away and not defend a kill, but he said it is very likely that it will return in the evening, and that has been the case in Watson’s 20 years as an officer.

Unless the location of the kill was somewhere SRD felt comfortable with, they would close the area and likely remove the carcass.

Watson said he has talked to many residents who live in areas where animals like cougars and bears live, and he gets lots of calls and discusses the issues with members of the community.

“For as long as Hinton has been a town, there’s been cougars around it, so I think most of the people understand and are aware of cougars and cougar safety,” he said.

Currently, Watson is preparing to run a weekend information booth at the mall in Hinton sometime in the upcoming weeks where he will talk with the public about cougar safety and have three mounted cougars on display. He’ll hopefully have his houndsman and some of his dogs on site as well.

Hinton SRD officers will also be attending the Hinton health and safety night on June 4 where they will talk about cougar and bear safety.