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May/June 2004 issue	In this issue Table of Contents Feature: Cougar attack In-depth: Cougars in Canada The Inside Story Editor’s Notebook Explorer Reverberations À la carte Mosaic

Photo: Marina Dodis

He strode down a gravel road that connects Port Alice, a pulp-mill village on Vancouver Island’s northwest coast, with the Jeune Landing log-sorting yard on Neroutsos Inlet. About a kilometre and a half from Jeune Landing, it started to rain. Parker had just ducked under a rock ledge at the side of the road to wait out the downpour when he thought he heard a noise behind him and turned to see what it was.

At that very moment, Parker found himself staring into the eyes of a healthy young male Puma concolor, an animal that goes by many names: cougar, mountain lion, puma, panther, catamount, night crier, ghost walker, swamp devil. This one was an arm’s length from his face.

He turned to run. The cougar pounced, and Parker was knocked face down in a ditch. The predator clung to his back, sinking its teeth into his skull. Within seconds, most of Parker’s scalp was torn away. His jaw was broken, his left cheekbone was cracked, and the orbital bones of his left temple were crushed. His right ear was hanging by a thread of skin.

"I remember thinking I’d never see my wife again," says Parker. "I remember thinking, well, this is where it all ends."

But then and there, he decided he wasn’t going to die on a rainy afternoon in a shallow ditch beside a dirt road on the outskirts of Port Alice. While the cougar was tearing at him with its claws and pulling away bits of his scalp, Parker reached for a small pocket knife in a sheath attached to his belt. "You fight back," he says, "because that’s all there is left to do."

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