10/8/2018 Answers to cougar questions - The Register-Guard

The Register­Guard | Page A01 Monday, 8 October 2018

Answers to cougar questions In light of recent sightings, a state wildlife biologist talks about what to watch for By Dylan Darling The Register­Guard It was about 3 a.m. Tuesday and all Crystal Leslie wanted was to unwind after a late shift at a local cafe. Leslie, 32, went to smoke a cigarette on the secondfloor balcony of her home on 41st Street in Springfield when she noticed her cat was acting hysterically below, reacting to something in the tree next to the porch. “I looked up at the tree and the cougar was like within four feet of me — no more than four feet of me,” she said. “It was pretty big and it was scaring me, but it was actually looking at the chicken coop in my neighbor’s backyard.” Leslie said she slowly backed into her house and shut the door. She only reported her encounter to Springfield police late last week after seeing a flurry of other sightings in the city. About a half dozen reports of cougars in Springfield came in last week, mainly near South 42nd Street. The reports led to warnings from police, particularly for the safety of school children. In July, a police sniper killed a cougar near 30th and Olympic streets after children playing in a back yard saw the big cat.

A cougar captured by a remote camera in California. [NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, VIA THE ASSOCIATED PRESS] http://eugeneregisterguard.or.newsmemory.com/publink.php?shareid=23d10674b 1/4 10/8/2018 Answers to cougar questions - The Register-Guard

“People have a heightened sense of awareness about cougars,” Springfield police Lt. Scott McKee said Friday. “The reports are probably prompted by the attention.” With that in mind, and cougar sightings on the rise, The Register­Guard spoke with Christopher Yee, the district wildlife biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in Springfield: Some people speculate that cougars are moving into the city in search of food. Do you think that’s a factor causing them to wander into an urban area? “I don’t. Our local cougar population I suspect is at carrying capacity. There are no territories left and the animals are still reproducing. … As we have more animals brought into the population, they’re setting up territories closer and closer, adjacent to, and, sometimes, within city limits.” (Statewide, the cougar population is estimated by the Department of Fish and Wildlife to be about 6,400.) Do you think wildfires in forests play a part in cougars moving into urban areas? “No. Fires, although sometimes they can damage the landscape with unnatural fuel loads, for the most part are beneficial. That habitat they create grows both deer and elk, as well as small mammals and ground­ nesting birds, and things that are prey items for predators, including cougars. Wildfire area is something that really benefits them. They’re not going to move out of it. They’re going to prosper in it.” Would you call cougars moving into the city encroachment? “Yeah. A lot of people think ‘Oh, well we’re moving into their habitat,’ and, to some extent, that’s true, but they’re also moving into ours because they are a very territorial animal. And, as I said, there are no territories left. They’re selecting territories that a normally behaving cougar would not choose ... because most of them don’t want to have anything to do with people. But if that’s all they have left, that’s what they take.” Earlier this year a cougar killed a hiker near Government Camp, marking the first verified fatality by a cougar. Why had there been no fatalities involving cougars in Oregon’s history? “We’ve been lucky.” (He added that there have been no confirmed attacks by cougars on people in Eugene or Springfield.) Are there any parts of the greater Eugene­Springfield area that have had the most cougar sightings? “Not really. We get them all over, and this occurs on an almost daily basis.” (He added that sightings also occur throughout the year.) Why is killing a cougar in an urban area often the solution in Oregon rather than relocating the animal? “You can’t take a territory animal like a cougar and just dump it into the middle of some other territory. You create problems for the animal you’ve http://eugeneregisterguard.or.newsmemory.com/publink.php?shareid=23d10674b 2/4 10/8/2018 Answers to cougar questions - The Register-Guard moved and the animals who live there. You can end up killing more than one cat in taking that course of action.” (He added that the state Department of Fish and Wildlife doesn’t want to take the risk of a problem animal moving to another community, where it could pose a risk to people.) What about those domestic cats found dead Thursday off of 42nd Street indicated a cougar killed them? “For starters, they’re cats, and cats do not like each other because they are territorial. … The other thing is the way the animal was consumed. Cougars tend to eat a lot of the bones of the animals that they consume. There were absolutely no bones, save the top part of the skull of the first cat that it killed a few weeks ago. The second cat was completely consumed. There was some fur and there was one paw that was left.” What should someone do if they encounter a cougar? “What people need to do is recognize that cougar might be there by mistake and it doesn’t want to be there any more than you do. And the tactics you use are trying to bluff that animal into thinking you are something very intimidating, that it doesn’t want to get into a fight with. So you want to make yourself appear as large as possible.” (He added that people should stare into the eyes of the cougar and yell at it, while slowly walking backwards to put space between the person and the animal.) Anything that homeowners can do to discourage cougars from coming onto their properties? “The biggest thing people can do is not feed wildlife. If you feed wildlife and you make wildlife come to your property on a regular basis, you’re setting the table for predators to follow, and that includes cougars.” (Also, mow tall grass, trim bushes and remove other hiding places, and install motion­ activated lighting.) What kind of cougar myths are out there? “The biggest thing is people always say, ‘Oh, I heard this cougar scream,’ or ‘this cougar growling,’ and the vast majority of the time it is not a cougar. They are a very quiet animal. Their most common vocalization sounds like a bird chirping.” (Many cougar reports in the Eugene­Springfield area correspond with raccoon breeding season.) “And if you have ever heard a raccoon vocalize, especially when they’re fighting, you can mistake that for a large animal. It’s a very fierce sound and it scares the heck out of most people if they don’t know it is.”

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