News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Wildlife officials weigh safety concerns in dealing with cougars. File photo courtesy Larry Pacenka, ODFW
The trapping and killing of a cougar that had taken up residence in the Camp Sherman community has saddened and angered some local residents.
They wonder why the cougar was killed instead of being relocated.
According to Stephen George, a wildlife biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, relocation is not an option.
The Camp Sherman cougar, a five-year-old healthy female, had been sighted in the area numerous times over a period of weeks and it had killed several domestic cats, George reported.
The cat was "indifferent to people," George said, and that is a danger sign.
"It shows with that indifference that it could potentially cause some real human problems," George said.
Recent maulings in Orange County, California, give evidence of the ability of the powerful predators to kill or maim a full-grown human.
Once a cougar gets comfortable living and hunting in close proximity to people, that behavior is almost certain to repeat itself wherever the cougar goes.
"Where in Oregon can you release an animal where it won't encounter people?" George said. "We just don't have any place."
Even remote areas don't promise refuge, because a cougar's territory is huge. A female cougar will range over 60 square miles and a male can cover from 120 to 140 square miles.
"I don't really feel good about taking it somewhere else where it will cause the same problems or even worse," George said.
ODFW personnel know that a decision to trap or hunt a "problem" cougar signs the cat's death warrant. George said the agency weighs the decision thoroughly before any action is taken.
A sighting or two likely won't trigger action. Cougars will occasionally pass through an area near a residential developments, then be gone for long stretches of time. Such behavior has been fairly common in the area around Tollgate.
A cougar taking up residence for a period of weeks in a residential area is "not normal," George said.
The biologist said he really doesn't have an idea why this particular cat behaved this way. Sometimes the behavior is triggered by illness or injury, but this cougar was healthy.
George was doubtful that conditions created by the B&B Complex Fire in the area had much to do with the cat's actions. The area west of Camp Sherman is summer range for deer and there hasn't been much disruption of normal activity this winter.
"I haven't seen that kind of displacement with big game animals, so I don't think that would influence what a cougar would do," he said.
ODFW captures and kills about two cougars per year in George's district, which stretches over 6,000 square miles from the Cascade crest to the Crooked River and from the Warm Springs Reservation south to Chemult.
Some argue that a ban on cougar hunting with hounds imposed by voters with the passage of Measure 18 in 1994 has led to an increase in cougar conflicts with humans.
The impact of the hound hunting ban is hard to measure, George said.
"We can't really determine that," he said. "The number of damage reports have increased, but they were on an increasing trend before that (passage of Measure 18)."
The sport harvest of cougars has remained about the same in gross numbers, without the use of dogs. However, there are more cougars to hunt as the population has increased and ODFW has greatly expanded the areas open to cougar hunting.
According to George, hunters take four or five cougars a year in the Metolius Basin, reflecting the extent of the population in the area.
Cougar populations are not over the capacity of the area, George said, but the availability of habitat is always the critical question for cougars -- one that grows more urgent as more development occurs in the forests of the region.
It is certain that conflicts will continue.
For George, the trapping and killing of a threatening cougar is an unpleasant but unavoidable necessity.
"It's one of those things that we don't relish, going out and killing animals like this," he said. "But we want to prevent any kind of human problems that we can."
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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