4A • COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL • FEBRUARY 6, 2019
O PINION
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Political/Election Letters:
Guest Viewpoint
Oregon cougar management requires looking back to plan ahead
By Duane Dungannon
Jim Akenson
T
he fatal cougar attack on a hiker in
the Mount Hood National Forest last
year was a tragic thing. Evidence evalua-
tion indicated the cougar was a female in
good health. Is this a surprise? Not really.
Cougar numbers are at all-time highs for
our state, and the distribution of these cats
encompasses the entire state.
What has accounted for this cougar
population expansion from an estimation
of less than 3,000 in the mid-1990s to well
over 6,000 today? Some of the answer is
biological, some is social, and much is
connected to management capabilities
and practices. We need to fi nd a way to re-
turn to this socio-biological balance, and
looking to the recent past might just be
the best bet — back to a time when hound
hunting was a legal and eff ective manage-
ment tool in Oregon.
What are the consequences of there be-
ing double the number of cougars in Or-
egon? Th ese eff ects are best described as
alarming and pattern changing. One such
pattern is for prey animals, specifi cally
deer, relocating to human development
areas to avoid a higher predation risk. Th is
relocation is also drawing in cougars that
will go where the next meal can be found.
Many hunters and state wildlife manag-
ers report that deer are now less abundant
in the wilder mountain, high desert, and
canyon regions of our state. Meanwhile,
Oregon cities are wrestling with the num-
ber of deer inhabiting city limits, and
cougars are showing up in backyards and
schoolyards.
As cougars become more comfortable
in human-altered landscapes, the proba-
bility of negative encounters with humans,
as well as pets and livestock, increases.
So, what is the solution? Biologically, it
is plain and simple — more intensive cou-
gar management through various hunting
techniques. With an estimated population
of 6,400 cougars, and roughly 14,000 peo-
ple hunting cougars and harvesting from
250 to 300 cats per year, this only equals a
harvest rate of four percent, which is not
enough to even fl atten the ever-rising cou-
gar population curve.
Reducing human threat, increasing
deer and elk survival, and bringing a
cougar population back in balance with
other interests in our state will require in-
creased management action and effi cien-
cy. According to the 2017 Oregon Cougar
Management Plan, the success rate for
2016 cougar hunters was 1.9 percent, with
13,879 people reporting that they did hunt
cougars.
Contrast that with 1994 data, the last
year that dogs were allowed in conser-
vatively controlled, limited-entry cougar
hunting, showing 358 people hunted cou-
gars and harvested 144 for a success rate
of 40.2 percent. Bottom line: hunting ef-
fi ciency with dogs is dramatically higher,
and provides wildlife managers a reliable
tool for maintaining the cougar popula-
tion within its management objectives.
Oregon’s cougar management and re-
cord keeping are divided into six zones,
each of which is assigned a desired har-
vest quota to keep the population in bal-
ance with the varied activities of all Or-
egonians. Employing the current limited
management methods, only one of the six
zones has met the harvest quota in recent
years.
A criterion for quota establishment is
complaint frequency. By far the most cou-
gar complaints are recorded on the west
side of the Cascades, including the coast-
al region, in Zones A and B. Th is is also
where the bulk of the human population
lives.
More than 350 cougar complaints per
year were received during the last de-
cade in these two zones. Unfortunately,
this recording system was not initiated
until 2001, so we don’t have data for the
time before the dog ban of 1994. We do
have records for administrative actions
connected to human safety and pet con-
fl icts before and aft er the dog ban of 1994.
For eight years before the ban, they aver-
aged only four per year, and then seven
years aft er the dog ban these complaints
increased to 27 per year — nearly a sev-
en-fold increase.
Oregon does have a legislatively autho-
rized agent program wherein highly vet-
ted houndsmen are permitted to lethally
remove cats to reduce human confl ict and
bolster deer and elk survival. Th ese agents
work closely with ODFW district biol-
ogists. Even with this program in place,
cougars are steadily increasing in Oregon,
where hunting them is very impractical
without the aid of dogs.
At present, the law authorizing the use
of agents is up for renewal, and hopefully
it will receive legislative support and then
be applied more broadly for both reaching
zone harvest quotas and to help curb the
upward statewide population trajectory.
Election-related letters must address pertinent or
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Candidates themselves may not use the letters to the
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As with all letters and advertising content, the
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reject any letter that doesn’t follow the above criteria.
Send letters to:
nhickson@cgsentinel.com or cmay@cgsentinel.com
HOW TO CONTACT YOUR REPS
Oregon state
representatives
Oregon federal
representatives
• Sen. Floyd Prozanski
District 4 State Senator
PO Box 11511
Eugene, Ore. 97440
Phone: 541-342-2447
Email : sen.fl oydprozanski@
state.or.us
• Rep. Cedric Hayden
Republican District 7 State
Representative
900 Court St. NE
Salem, Ore. 97301
Phone: 503-986-1407
Website: www.leg.state.or.
us/hayden
Email: rep.cedrichayden@
state.or.us
• Rep. Peter DeFazio
(House of Representatives)
405 East 8th Ave.
#2030
Eugene, Ore. 97401
Email: defazio.house.gov/
contact/email-peter
Phone: 541-465-6732
• Sen. Ron Wyden
405 East 8th Ave., Suite 2020
Eugene, Ore. 97401
Email: wyden.senate.gov
Phone: (541) 431-0229
• Sen. Jeff Merkley
Email: merkley.senate.gov
Phone: 541-465-6750
C ottage G rove
S entinel
(541) 942-3325
Jim Akenson is a wildlife biologist, book
author and Conservation Director for the
Oregon Hunters Association (oregonhunt-
ers.org). He invested much of his career in
researching the Northwest’s predators.
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