Cougars are part of the landscape

Authorities shot and killed a cougar in the Mount Hood National Forest last week, a female cat believed to have been responsible for killing 55-year-old hiker Diana Bober of Gresham.

The attack is the only known fatal incident involving a cougar in Oregon.

Cougars are a seldom-seen but ever-present element of the natural world of Sisters Country. There have been several sightings this summer in and immediately around town, and an incident of predation on goats at a Sisters-area ranch. The cougar believed responsible for those killings was trapped and killed. A Bend man shot and killed a cougar last month, when he and his wife went out at night to check on a herd of sheep that had previously come under a cougar attack.

The cougar population is widely estimated at approximately 6,600, which is about double the estimated population in 1994, when voters approved a ballot initiative banning the use of hounds to hunt cougar.

"Measure 18 passed in 1994 by the narrowest of margins," said Duane Dungannon, state coordinator for Oregon Hunters Association.

Since that time, Dungannon said, OHA has supported a bill in every legislative session "to get some relief from Oregon's burgeoning cougar population." Dungannon said that OHA is concerned about heavy cougar predation on deer (a cougar will eat about one per week of its preferred prey), impact on livestock operations and public safety. The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission has adjusted rules to allow civilian houndsmen to act as agents of the state in tracking problem cougars, Dungannon noted, and to allow year-round hunting of the animals (without hounds).

The Commission can't reinstate hound hunting though.

"The Commission can't touch the ballot measure, because that's statutory," Dungannon said.

Wildlife advocates assert that the growing human population in the urban-wildland interface creates the opportunity for more contacts, an argument that Dungannon does not accept. He notes that many communities in Eastern Oregon that have the same or lower population than they did in 1994 have experienced more cougar sightings and contacts in recent years.

The Oregon Cougar Action Team, a non-profit "dedicated to public education regarding cougars and the preservation and protection of Oregon's cougar and wolves" issued a statement in the aftermath of the fatal attack:

"As a memorial to Diana Bober, we ask that in her name Oregonians create a cougar management plan that is based on the hallmarks of science rather than profit, holistic perspectives rather than fear, and has an honest cougar model population count rather than stealth policy-making. ODFW has known, as does the global science on large carnivore's [sic] for which cougar are included, that killing them increases human-cougar conflict issues. Allowing these American lions to be left alone to do the job of regulating the ecologies, would be safer for all of us."

Dungannon and many other outdoorsmen believe that cougars have lost their fear of humans since hound hunting was banned. He noted that the generation of cougars that grew up in the era of hound hunting associated vehicle traffic, the sound of humans and barking dogs with "trouble" and therefore were shy of human contact.

"Now though, all those cougars are gone," he said. "You have a generation of cougars that have none of those associations... I hate to say it, but this may be the new normal."

Author Bio

Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief

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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