If you’ve ever seen a cougar, count yourself lucky. For most of us, it will never happen.

But a 30-second, trail-camera video this week of a cougar hunting black-tailed deer in the mountains near Maple Bay is the next best thing.

I placed the trail cam (with infrared and sound capability) in a patch of forest frequented by deer, but seldom visited by people.

It took weeks of trying, but patience finally paid off.

The video provides a brief glimpse of a wild predator going about its business in the cloak of darkness without human intrusion.

It’s also an opportunity to reflect on the natural world in our backyard.

The Six Mountains — a popular name for the Municipal Forest Reserve — is part of the coastal Douglas-fir forest (CDF), the most endangered forest type in BC.

While cougar populations are healthy on Vancouver Island, the Coastal Douglas-fir Conservation Partnership — a coalition of more than 40 conservation groups and levels of government, but not North Cowichan — reports that the CDF “contains more species at risk than any other ecological zone in BC (25 globally imperilled species and >225 species that are provincially imperilled or threatened).”

Logging and development are leading threats to wildlife species in this forest type.

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— Larry Pynn (video editing, J. Tyerman; web manager Eli Christoff), May 17, 2025