Scott Swanson
For the second time in two months, a Sweet Home School District driver has spotted a cougar while out on a bus route.
This time, though, it was very up close and personal as Donnette Jewell-Caulkins actually hit one of the big cats, which bolted across the road in front of the Suburban she was driving down Fern Ridge Road to Highway 228 on the east end of town.
Jewell-Caulkins was on a route to pick up a special-needs student Thursday morning, Jan. 19, and was descending down Fern Ridge from the crest of the hill when the cougar ran in front of her in the darkness.
The collision came on the short flat section before the road drops down to the highway, she said.
“There was nothing I could do,” she said. “I hit it hard.”
After being struck, the cougar ran into a some briars bordering a field next to the road, she said.
Hawthorne aide Kathy Hughes was accompanying Jewell-Caulkins, but no one else was in the vehicle.
This was the second encounter with a cougar in, literally, two months as bus driver Ginger Allen spotted one on Nov. 15 while delivering children to their homes in the Whiskey Butte area.
Jewell-Caulkins, who also serves as secretary for the school district Transportation Department, said she has been driving the Suburban route since last spring. She said she’s seen cougars in her neighborhood in the Airport Road area, but never while driving for the district, although she’s since learned that three cougars are believed to be in the Fern Ridge area.
“This one was immense,” she said. “It was a big full-grown adult. I’d say it had to be a male. I could see the whole thing over the hood of the Suburban.”
Later inspection revealed that a turn signal light was broken, but Jewell-Caulkins said they found one cougar hair in the grille.
She said she called the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife after she got back to the Transportation Office and later showed biologist Nancy Taylor where the collision had occurred, so an ODFW tracker could attempt to find the animal.
“It was still dark,” Jewell-Caulkins said. “I wasn’t getting out to check, believe me.”
ODF biologist Karen Hans said Friday that Taylor and others searched for three hours but were unable to locate the cougar.