Yukon conservation officers on lookout for cougars

Conservation officers in the Yukon hope they can snap their first photographs of a live cougar in the territory after residents in Destruction Bay filed reports of sightings.

Officers are heading to the community, located 210 kilometres west of Whitehorse, on Monday to confirm those sightings, taking camera gear with them. If they do see a cougar, it will be the first confirmed sighting of a live cougar in the Yukon.

"We actually got two reports over the weekend that there might have been cougars seen in people's yards," Dennis Senger, a spokesman for the Conservation Department, said Monday.

"The one in Destruction Bay, our conservation officer from Whitehorse is going out with some camera equipment and we're going to see somehow if this cat keeps coming back, that we might be able to capture a photograph of it to verify."

The Yukon has had only one confirmed cougar sighting, of a dead cougar found in 2000 near Watson Lake. Officials said it appeared to have crawled into an abandoned vehicle, where it starved to death.

Echo Valley sighting mistaken

Senger said another report of a recent cougar sighting near Echo Valley, just outside of Whitehorse, is believed to be a case of mistaken identification.

Conservation officers believe a resident mistook a female lynx and her kittens for the much larger cougar family of cats.

Senger said the territorial government wants to hear from people who believe they may have seen a cougar.

The department maintains a database of all sightings, he said.