iStockphoto / CarlHaynes13
Call it paranoia, call it hypervigilance, but sometimes when you are struck with the foreboding sense that something or someone is watching you it turns out that there is, in fact, a giant cougar crouched feet away hiding in the bushes. In this instance, a mountain lion surprises a family that was just chilling in their jacuzzi in British Columbia when they felt like something was off and looked in the woods.
A video of the encounter has gone viral on TikTok and has been viewed nearly a million times. It’s truly eerie to see how close this mountain lion is before they were able to ever spot it.
In the video, the daughter is filming as her dad is speaking. They are scanning the woods for something and a few moments into the video we hear “oh, it is a cougar, dad” and at that point we see the giant cat’s eyes illuminated from the light of the camera. It was a mere body length away from where they were chilling in the jacuzzi before slowly backing away:
She later posted this still which shows how close it was along with a 12-second version of the video above which cuts out the beginning portion:
https://www.tiktok.com/@captain.natalee/photo/7459639258182176006
Tofino, where this was filmed, is a tiny district on Vancouver island with a population of only about 2,500 residents. The exact number of mountain lions in Tofino isn’t know but there are an estimated 4,000 cougars across British Columbia and this area is certainly a hotbed for cougar activity.
All that is to say this is an area where everyone needs to be vigilant when outside. If it feels like there are eyes locked on you, maybe there are…