When Armstrong resident Loni Breaks discovered her pig Daisy had suffered puncture wounds overnight, she suspected a cougar was the culprit. But local Conservation Officers have since told her the attack was more likely by coyotes or a bobcat.
Daisy resides in a barn stall on Breaks’ Nobel Road property. The barn is only partway constructed and secured with lumber tarps. Five days ago Breaks got a tip from her horse that something was up.
“He started snorting and blowing … alerting me that something is going on,” she said.
For the past few days Breaks has noticed that the front flap on the barn has been pushed open.
“We thought at first that it was wind but it happened too many mornings in a row, and the other animals are sort of spooked.”
Breaks called the BC Conservation Officer Service on Thursday, the day after the attack. The officer she spoke to told her not to worry about a cougar, as poor Daisy wouldn’t have fared so well against one.
“He doesn’t believe it would be a cougar because he said it would have finished her off.”
Breaks said the Conservation Officer advised her to keep her animals locked up as best she can. That means closing Daisy off from her fellow barn animals.
“It’s coming right into the barn and going into her stall,” Breaks said of the predator. “We have big stall doors but she’s only about a 150-pound pig, so we don’t close her stall front so she can see everybody else in the barn.
“I hate doing it but her stall front is closed now, so she’s blocked off. I don’t think anything is going to happen to her.”
As an extra precaution, Breaks says she and her husband will be stepping up their barn security.
“I’m probably going to sleep in the barn tonight and my husband’s going to see if he can borrow somebody’s game cam and see if we can’t catch something in the act.”
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