Two large male cougars, which had killed livestock in the area in recent weeks, were both trapped Monday morning, less than four miles apart, near Holley.
The two were caught by Ron Henthorne of Crawfordsville.
Brian Wolfer, a district wildlife biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Springfield office, said ODFW took a tooth from each cougar to determine age, but those results will not be available immediately. Wolfer estimated that the cougars are mid-range adults, 4 to 7 years old, in their prime.
“They were both healthy,” he said.
The larger of the cougars, which Oregon Department of Fish and Game officials weighed in at 156 pounds, was trapped on property owned by Dean McQueen on McQueen Drive. Henthorne said it had killed two calves and a cow.
“That’s a big cat,” said Henthorne, who estimated he has “probably killed close to 20″ cougars in the last three years.”
The second cat, which weighed 125 pounds, was caught just south of the power lines off Crescent Hill Road, on property
belonging to Sherman Weld that is being leased by neighbor Randy Schoonover. Schoonover, who raises Boer goats, said he had lost six goats to the cat since early January.
“We’ve been trying to catch this cat all year,” he said.
Henthorne theorized that the Crescent Hill cougar, which had scars criss-crossing its face, was probably involved in a fight with three pit bulls at a home on Crawfordsville Drive a month ago. He said the dog’s owners paid $1,200 in veterinary bills to get their pets stitched up after their encounter with the cougar.
Henthorne said he could tell where the cougar had jumped the fence on Crescent Hill during his visits to the goats, from the hair he found every few hundred feet on the fence around the pasture.
He said that, unlike coyotes, cougars do not like to return to kills that aren’t fresh, so he made it a point to get to the sites when McQueen and Schoonover reported their losses.
“The difference between a private trapper like me and a government trapper is that I don’t let the sun set before I get traps set,” he said. “It will often take a week before the government trapper gets there.”
Henthorne said he has seen a definite shift in cougars’ behavior since the implementation of Measure 18 in December 1994, which prohibits using hounds to hunt the big cats.
“They’re not scared of anything,” he said, noting that he would not suggest walking alone in the woods, even with €“ or particularly with €“ a dog, without a firearm.
“Before Measure 18 passed, there’s no way I would have gotten these cats on private property. There’s just too doggone many cats.
“I see just as many deer covered by sticks as I do walking around,” he said.
Places that back up to foothills covered in brush and trees are going to have cougar, Wolfer said. Unfortunately, they will take animals and livestock that look like their prey. They have large ranges, 15 to 50 square miles for females and more than 50 square miles for males, so it may be months between sightings and incidents.
The number of cougar has increased drastically from the late 1960s when Oregon cougars were nearly extirpated, Wolfer said. The population has grown since then and filled in the state with cougars.
“That does put them in the foothills closer to people,” Wolfer said, adding that it is difficult to judge whether they are less fearful of people.
They are inhabiting areas that 20 years ago experts said were unsuitable because of cougars’ secretive nature, Wolfer said.
When the prime spots are used up, he suggested, individual cougars will make a go of it in the less desirable areas.
Oregon hasn’t had any documented attacks on people, Wolfer said, which means the cougars either continue not to recognize people as prey or they still strive to avoid people.
“There’s a very healthy cougar population, but even so, they’re still pretty secretive,” Wolfer said. “On the whole, there’s more in the foothills than people realize.”
That doesn’t mean they won’t take livestock, nor does it mean that individual cougars do not lose their fear of humans, Wolfer said.
The state legislature has allowed cougars to be trapped and killed when cougars lose their fear of humans, demonstrated by multiple daylight sightings around buildings.
Henthorne emphasized that it is illegal to kill a cougar without a proper hunting tag or unless the animal has already caused damage €“ such as a livestock kill.
If someone calls him after the latter has occurred, he said, he “always” alerts Oregon State Police or ODFW officials that he is going after a cougar.
The law allows landowners to take a cougar that has caused loss or harm, Wolfer said. In this case, livestock was killed. The property owner may hire an agent to trap the cougar on his or her behalf. The trapper must inform the state police and submit the body to the ODFW for examination and to record weight, length and age.
Henthorne noted that cougar advocates argue that humans are moving into cougars’ habitat. But, he said, in this case both cats were caught on land that had been farmed for decades.
“Both of these were old homesteads,” he said.