WATERTON, Alta. — An Edmonton-area teenager says she will keep hiking despite surviving a close call with a cougar in a southern Alberta national park.
Mykaela Belter, who is 17, was on a trail with her family in Waterton Lakes National Park yesterday when the wild cat jumped out and grabbed her.
She and her sister screamed but it was her dad yelling at the mountain lion that scared it away.
Mykaela — who is from St. Albert, northwest of Edmonton — has some scratches and puncture wounds, but is fine after having them looked at in hospital.
A Parks Canada spokesman says the cougar was located and destroyed.
Dennis Madsen, the park’s resource conservation manager, says the cougar was shot by wildlife officers after it threatened a second group of hikers.
He says such an attack is very unusual behaviour for a cougar, because the animals normally avoid people.
