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At the end of June, farmer Alastair Johnstone knew something was wrong when he found one of his baby sheep standing by itself.
“I went and looked a bit closer at it, and it had blood draining down its neck,” the Bowen Island, B.C., farmer said.
Concerned, he decided to look around the property. At the bottom of the field, he found a dead adult female sheep.
“I’m guessing the ewe was protecting the lamb when the cougar grabbed it,” Johnstone said.
He then went to check on the rest of the flock and discovered he was missing another baby sheep.
It took him nearly an hour to find the lamb.
“It was one of our firstborn lambs, and the cougar had picked it up, dragged it over a four-foot fence and down about a hundred yards, and then hid it in the bushes,” Johnstone said.
An employee was working in the orchard at Bowen Cider House two months ago when it almost stumbled on a cougar. Alastair Johnstone said the cougar was sitting and staring at the man in the middle of the day. (Alastair Johnston)
This isn’t the first time livestock has been killed on Bowen Island by a cougar in recent weeks. Johnstone wants the animal removed after it also killed two other sheep at a different farm.
“I never expected to have my sheep attacked by a cougar on Bowen, that’s just not my experience for the island,” he said.
Johnstone, a sheep farmer for 25 years, is also the co-owner of Bowen Cider House.
“I’m really getting annoyed, because it’s now moved on to livestock and the strangest thing is, it’s not eating the livestock, it’s killing them, storing them and then leaving,” Johnstone said.
The B.C Conservation Officer Service confirms that on June 26 a cougar killed livestock and officers set up a trap in the area.
Officers stayed overnight, but no cougar was captured.
“The trap was pulled on June 28,” said a spokesperson.
Long-time resident Nelson Riley has been finding deer carcasses on his property for the last two years, since the cougar first came to the island.
“For some reason, they like to drag them underneath structures or inside structures that aren’t used a lot,” Riley said.
A trail camera on Cordell Wynne’s property in February 2025 captured video of the cougar strutting and sitting down. (Cordell Wynne)
He has never felt threatened by the cougar.
“If I had livestock, I’d have a different take on this,” Riley said. “They can burrow under fences, it’s really hard to keep something like a cougar out.”
Co-habiting with the cougar has been a contested issue for residents, with online petitions calling for the cougar to stay and others calling for it to be removed.
“If we don’t remove them early, then they’re destroyed by conservation because they become problem animals,” Johnstone said. “Bowen is half the territory that’s needed for a cougar.”
His sheep have been relocated to another area on the island to keep them safe.
Carla Skuce, environment and parks manager at Bowen Island Municipality, is asking people to be aware of wildlife when visiting the island.
“It’s not just the cougar, we actually have potentially two bears here now,” Skuce said. “The best thing is just making noise on the trail.”
As for residents, she is asking them to manage their attracts and garbage.
“We need to pick fruit from fruit trees, we need to be more responsible than we have been,” Skuce said.
Up until these recent incidents, the cougar was not believed to have killed any livestock.
Bowen Island Municipality said relocating the cougar from the island is not being considered and said cougars are highly mobile, elusive animals that are particularly difficult to trap.
Conservation officers will continue to monitor cougar activity on Bowen Island and will respond as necessary to ensure public safety.