Cougar encounter caught on video in downtown Comox, B.C.

Her video only lasts a few moments but a Comox, B.C., woman has captured footage of a cougar in downtown Comox doing some "window shopping."

Miranda Fowler was driving home from work around 10 p.m. Monday when she spotted a cougar cross in front of her on Comox Avenue.

"It actually crossed the road in front of me and at first I thought it was a dog," Fowlers says. "I thought, that’s a very odd-moving dog and then as I got closer I noticed it was kind of slinking and then that’s when it hit me that it was a cougar."

While cougars have been spotted in the area before, being in the downtown core is unusual.

"When it got across the street to the shops, it started pacing back and forth and actually stood up on its back legs at one of the glass doors of the shops,” she says.

Fowler says the cat’s attention may have been drawn to a shiny tinfoil heart on the door of a nail salon. A check of the area on Tuesday reveals that there is also a cage full of budgies in the salon’s front window.

“It was up [on] its back legs," Fowler says. "As I kind of passed, that’s when it turned into the Scotiabank parking lot and I lost sight of it. It was pretty insane."