One sneaky Banff cougar thought it could quietly cross an intersection without being caught by a couple of cops standing nearby.
Unfortunately for the animal, the officers’ dashcam was on and filmed the whole thing.
In the video, you can clearly see the animal slowly crossing the street near a grocery store while RCMP officers talk to a driver nearby.
While the animal almost makes it across without being spotted, one of the officers seems to catch sight of the animal right before it disappears into the night.
According to the CBC, the incident happened at the intersection of Elk Street and Marten Street, in a relatively populated area.
This was not the first time the animal was seen perilously close to this particular grocery store either. The RCMP suspect that the same animal was spotted near that store early in the morning on January 9.
The officers present contacted Banff National Park’s wildlife officers and notified them about the incident. They were able to determine that the animal eventually left the urban area and continued on to one of the area’s wildlife corridors.
Bill Hunt, manager of resource conservation with Banff National Park, told the CBC that while park staff try to discourage this kind of wandering, it’s not as rare as people might suspect.
“I am sure this happens several times a year and goes completely undetected. Cougars can be pretty elusive so they are hard to spot.”
As to why this particular animal wandered through town in the first place, Hunt suspects it was just a fluke.
“It seemed like he or she just tried a shortcut that didn’t work.”
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