IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
| Foster, D. | |
| Cougar attacks increasing in West | |
| 1998 Newspaper | |
When concerns about marauding cougars rise, wildlife experts offer reassurances: The typical cougar is a shy creature that avoids people and prefers to eat deer rather than pets or children. So much for typical. Now consider the cougar that ate Wes Collins' dog: It emerged from the forest behind the Collins house one evening in May and zeroed in on Sandy, the family's 50-pound Labrador mix. As two of Collins' children watched from the doorway, the cougar chased Sandy around the house and cornered her by the back deck. Clamping its jaws around the dog's neck, the cougar dragged Sandy 50 yards into the woods. There it gnawed on her head and shoulder, buried the rest for later, and stretched out for a long nap. That was enough to shake up the Collinses But what happened the next day was what troubled state game warden Rocky Spencer. He and a hunter arrived with two hounds, pessimistic about their chances of tracking the cat. Collins' houses its on 5 acres outside Issaquah, where Seattle's suburban sprawl gives way to the forested Cascade foothills, so the cougar had plenty of escape routes to wilder country. But this cat had no intention of fleeing. The hounds came across it just 100 yards into the woods, and the snarling cougar turned on the dogs with a fury that sent both back to the truck to lick their wounds. Forty minutes later, hunter Ed Mahany returned with a friend and two fresh hounds. They figured that this time, surely, the cougar would have headed for the hills. Instead, the hounds found it just a few hundred feet away. Mahany's partner shot it, and the cougar, a 145-pound male, crawled off to die in a hollow stump that the neighbor's kids play in. |
|
 |
PDF files are only accessible to Friends of the Cat Group. Joining Friends of the Cat Group gives you unlimited access and downloads in the Cat SG Library for one year, and allows you to receive our newsletter Cat News (2 regular issues per year plus special issues). More information how to join here |
(c) IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group ( IUCN - The World Conservation Union) |