Oregon Public Broadcasting

Cougars, or Mountain Lions as they’re sometimes called can be found throughout Oregon, that is if you know where to look. 

Most of the time these solitary predators manage to remain out of sight as they stalk their prey, mostly deer.

But sometimes, these big cats wander into more populated areas as residents in Eugene, Corvallis and La Pine have seen in the last few weeks.  And when they do they often stir up a mix of fear and controversy.

Melissa Sullivan loves animals.

Melissa Sullivan: “I’ve got two adult horses, a mini horse, four cats, two birds, two dogs, eight rabbits and a fish.”

ODFW Photo

That’s a total of twenty.  But that number doesn’t include the two pygmy goats that authorities believe were killed by an adolescent cougar outside her home last week in rural La Pine.  Sullivan says she bottle-fed one of the goats, Billy since he was two weeks old.

Melissa Sullivan: “I mean, he was like my child.  He was like my little kid.  And technically is a kid.  But it’s just hard to lose a member of your family.”

Depredation, as these attacks are called, happens with some regularity in Oregon. Last month in Corvallis, wildlife officials captured and killed a 46-pound female cougar suspected of attacking a dog in a residential neighborhood.

And just this week in Eugene, there were two cougar sightings, one near an elementary school.

For some Oregonians, that’s a little too close for comfort. Sullivan says she’d like to see a repeal of ballot measure 18. That’s the 1994 law that banned the use of dogs to hunt cougars and bears in Oregon.

Melissa Sullivan: “Let them hunt the proper way.  Let them use the resources that they have to do the hunting”

Sullivan believes that ban left Oregon with too many big cats.

So how many cougars are actually out there?  Well, that depends on who you ask.

Michelle Dennehey: “In 1994, we estimate we had about 3000 cougars.  Now, we estimate we have about 5,700 cougars.

Michelle Dennehey is a spokeswoman with Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.  That’s the state agency responsible for managing the cougar population. Dennehey says the agency’s numbers are based on a population model that uses measurements taken from cougars slain each year.   

Michelle Dennehey: “Naturally as you have more cougars, you have more opportunities to interact in bad ways with livestock, with people.”

But some scientists have questioned the validity of ODFW’s methodology. 

In 2008, Dr. Robert Wielgus, director of the Large Carnivore Conservation Lab at Washington State University was asked to take part in a review of ODFW’s cougar management plan.

Wielgus believes ODFW’s method of projecting cougar populations is fundamentally flawed.

Robert Wielgus: “They report densities of cougars that I’ve not seen anywhere. Really high densities.”

In fact, Weilgus disputes the way many states estimate their cougar populations.

Robert Wielgus: “And typically cougar densities are overestimated 2 to 3 times.”

In a series of studies conducted in Washington State, Wielgus and his colleagues found that most depredation is caused by young adolescent cougars. And he says that the hunting of older cougars results in more depredations, as younger cougars take over their territory.

Robert Wielgus: “It’s actually inversely proportional.  The higher the degree of hunting the more depredations and complaints you have.”

Dennehey says ODFW rejects the application of the study’s findings to Oregon since the study took place in Washington where hunting with dogs is permitted, and hunters can theoretically be more selective in their kills.

In Oregon, cougar hunting has increased in the years since hunting with dogs was banned. Following measure 18’s passage, ODFW expanded the hunting season.  It now lasts year round. 

ODFW also lowered the price of a cougar tag from over $50 to about $14 and it began to include cougar tags in it’s hunting “sport pack.”

In 1994, the year the ban on hunting with dogs was passed, hunters killed 144 cougars. This past year, hunters killed 274 cougars.

Those numbers don’t include the cougars killed by ODFW as part of its wildlife management plan or for public safety.

Cougars have been known to attack and even kill humans in rare instances in the west. But ODFW’s Michelle Dennehey says people need keep that in perspective.

Michelle Dennehey: “It’s important to note that a cougar has never attacked a person in Oregon and any kind of encounter between cougars and people is extremely rare.”

David Barron lives in Boulder Colorado.  He’s the author of The Beast in the Garden, a book about the complicated relationship between humans and cougars.  He says debates about wildlife management have a tendency to get superheated.

David Baron: “It’s very political.  Because you know part of it is, you’ve got a state fish and game department that is there to manage the wildlife but who are they managing the wildlife for? I mean it all comes down to values.  There’s no right answer.”

And as long as cougars continue to show up in populated areas in Oregon, the debate about cougar management is likely to be contentious.