A cougar is hanging around Cayce Vanderzalm’s south Langley farm, and neither she nor her horses are happy about the visitor.

The animal was first spotted in mid-August, and Vanderzalm has seen it at least six times since then.

“The last time I saw it was one hour ago,” she said at 10 a.m. on Monday.

Vanderzalm, who is a horse owner and barn manager on a farm at 216 Street and 16 Avenue, said, “I have a responsibility to my clients to make sure their horses are well fed and taken care of, but also for their safety.”

She is concerned that “something is going to happen and the conservation people are refusing to step in and relocate the cougar,”

she said, adding that something must be done “before someone gets hurt.”

But, when she raised her concerns with conservation officers, she was told that “they aren’t willing to do anything about it until something bad happens.”

“They told us to make ourselves look big,” she said. “They said that a cougar won’t injure horses, but a lot of horses are under 34 inches.”

“I know that they are not safe,” she said, adding that a friend lost four or five horses to a cougar in the past.

She is concerned not only for herself and the animals in her care, but for children and other barn workers.

Her own horses are miniatures, which she says are “the perfect size for cougar food.”

Because of their size and the threat from the cougars, the miniatures are being kept inside a barn unless there is someone at hand to look out for the cougar.

“We are trying to get something done so that the cougar can be re-located so that it’s not a nuisance,” Vanderzalm said.

In June, 2005, Noel Booth Elementary school principal Peter Luongo reported seeing a cougar near the grounds of his school, which is at 20202 - 35 Avenue, at the edge of the urban-rural boundary in Brookswood and abutting Noel Booth Park.

Conservation officers came out immediately.

The cougar population is growing, and their increasing presence is likely the result of spreading urbanization.

Several calls to the Ministry of Environment’s conservation offices in Surrey and Victoria were not returned.