Scott Swanson
Whether cat was one involved in horse’s death is uncertain
Mitch Walker says has seen three cougars in the last month – all in different spots around Sweet Home.
The most recent was on a logging road near Bates Bridge, not far from where he lives, off Pleasant Valley Road.
Walker said he was hunting on private property in the 29000 block of Pleasant Valley, the whereabouts he declined to pinpoint exactly, on Saturday, Oct. 13, opening day of elk season, when he heard a deer give a distress call.
“I heard this old doe coughing,” he said. “I walked over the top of the field and the cougar was standing in the middle of the road.”
Walker shot the cat, his first, he said.
He plans to get it mounted by taxidermist Heath Sewell, who estimated the tom at 140 to 150 pounds,
Walker said the location where he shot his cougar was about eight miles, as the crow flies, from where a horse was fatally injured in a cougar attack on Northside Road Sept. 31.
He said he’s sure more than one cougar is in the area, a belief that is substantiated by the fact that another Pleasant Valley resident who lives in the 27000 block reported to the Sheriff’s Office Monday, Oct. 15, that a cougar was in her back yard.
“In August of last year I got two different cats on trail cams,” Walker said.
Biologist Nancy Taylor, of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Corvallis office, said the tom’s age had not been determined as of Monday of this week. She also said it’s hard to tell if the cougar Walker shot had anything to do with the horse attack.
“It’s hard to prove and wildlife officials have yet to see any of the evidence,” she said, noting that the veterinarian who put the horse down has yet to submit any photos or information on the case.