‘He looked right at us’: Cougar spotted swimming off Vancouver Island

A family was out on their boat near Tofino when they had a once-in-a-lifetime wildlife encounter.

When Jenna Evans and her parents launched their boat from Grice Bay in Tofino, B.C. on Saturday morning, the last thing they expected to find in the water that day was a cougar.

“You never see a cougar swimming, ever. So, I pulled out the phone and we started recording,” says Evans. “Like, we were just in complete shock.”

Evans says the cougar was swimming across the Dawley Passage from Vancouver Island to Meares Island, making it to the other side in just a couple of minutes.

They watched the cougar from a safe distance on their boat as it swam through the pass heading towards the other side.

The big cat made eye contact with Evans, but she says that it seemed more concerned about the strong current than the humans in close proximity.

“He didn’t seem bothered at all. He looked right at us and just turned his head back and kept swimming because we were kind of to the side of him,” says Evans.

It isn’t known why the cougar was swimming across the pass, but Evans says her dad saw some blood on its mouth and believes it may have been in a fight with a bear or another animal before deciding to jump into the water to escape.

Evans uploaded the video to TikTok, where it’s been viewed nearly 300,000 times and received hundreds of comments.

“People just can’t believe it either,“ Evans says. ”Everyone’s just shocked to see a cat in the ocean swimming. You know, it’s such a rare sight."

As for the cougar, it would reach its destination at Meares Island, climbing up some rocks before running into the woods and out of sight.

With files from CTV News Vancouver Island’s Andy Garland