Most Albertans will never see a cougar in the wild. Almost nobody sees more than one at a time.
A field camera near Priddis, about 10 kilometres west of Calgary's city limits, caught a mother and her kittens moving past a cabin in daylight.
That's the part worth understanding.
Why cougars are almost always alone
Cougars are solitary. Adults hold territories and generally avoid each other outside of brief mating encounters, and a single adult can range across a very large area.
The one exception is a mother with kittens.
A female raises her litter alone. Kittens stay with her while they learn to hunt, then disperse to find territory of their own.
So a group on camera is almost always the same thing: one female and her young, in the window before they scatter.
If you've spent years in the foothills and only ever seen single cougars, that's not luck. That's the species.
Where Priddis is
A hamlet in Foothills County at 1,160 metres, southwest of where Highway 22X meets the Cowboy Trail. The 2003 municipal census put the population at 79. It's named for Charles Priddis, who homesteaded along Fish Creek in 1886.
The terrain is what cougars use. Foothills, creek valleys, wooded cover and deer.
That last part is most of the explanation. Cougars go where deer are.
Yes, this happens near Calgary
A reasonable question, and worth answering plainly.
Trail camera footage of cougars near the city isn't unusual. In April 2024, a family's motion-sensor camera at a cabin about 20 minutes northwest of Cochrane recorded four cougars walking past the front door at roughly 1 a.m.
"We've seen bear, deer and foxes on the camera before," Kevin Davis told Global News at the time, "but never a cougar, especially a family of cougars."
In February 2025, two cougar kittens spotted in the Bow Valley without their mother went into Calgary Zoo care.
Cougars have been in the foothills west and south of Calgary continuously. Cameras are what changed, not the cats.
The same community had a very different encounter
Worth knowing alongside the footage.
In September 2024, a cougar killed a pet cat in broad daylight on a rural property near Priddis, then behaved aggressively toward the homeowner while she filmed it. It returned to the house that night.
"It was the scariest thing I've ever been through," Jessica Low said afterward. "I was shaking physically for about four hours after the incident and then again when it came back later."
Alberta Fish and Wildlife deployed a contract cougar houndsman with dogs the next day and couldn't locate the animal. The department later concluded it had moved on from the immediate area.
Twelve days later, a family near Millarville had a cougar attack their Scottish terrier.
Both stories are true at once. A cougar family on camera is remarkable. Cougars living close to Calgary is a fact with responsibilities attached.
What to do if you see one
Do not run. Running triggers a chase response.
Make yourself look large. Raise your arms, open your jacket, stand tall.
Maintain eye contact and back away slowly. Never turn your back.
Pick up small children and pets immediately.
Speak firmly and loudly.
If one attacks, fight back. Aim for the eyes and face.
If you live in that country
Cougars follow deer, so anything that draws deer eventually draws cougars.
Don't feed deer. Deal with fallen fruit and accessible gardens.
Keep pets in at dawn and dusk, when cougars are most active. Small pets left out in cougar country are at real risk, which the 2024 incident demonstrated.
Motion-activated lighting helps. So does clearing dense cover close to the house, because an ambush predator needs somewhere to wait.
Report sightings
Alberta Fish and Wildlife asks people to report cougar sightings at 1-800-642-3800.
Report even when nothing happens. It's how the province tracks movement and identifies an animal that has stopped avoiding people.
Under provincial rules, a landowner can legally kill but not trap a cougar on their own property.
That's narrower than it sounds. Cougar hunting in Alberta is regulated, and enforcement is real. Earlier this year, eight people were found guilty in a case that began with a single out-of-season cougar kill: Eight People Guilty in Alberta Cougar and Lynx Poaching Case That Started With One Out-of-Season Kill
In an emergency, call 911.
Send us your trail camera footage
If you have a field camera in the foothills and you've caught something worth seeing, send it with the date and rough location. We'll add the best of it to this story.
Sources
Government of Alberta, cougar encounters and wildlife management
Alberta Fish and Wildlife
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