Cougar killing animals on Olympic Peninsula

Wildlife officers are tracking a cougar that has killed up to a dozen domesticated animals near Quilcene on the Olympic Peninsula.

[mbednarz]

Ok, let me refute the "Cougars have nowhere left" and "people are encroaching on their habitat" argument. I live smack in the middle of this cats range. It's been seen by my mailbox and in the back yard of a neighbor. I have picked up and thrown away what was left of a deer between my neighbors house and my own, it was just a oile of hair and hide, licked clean and it was about 30 yards from a chained Hybrid wolf dog. Only a Cougar would do that, not Coyotes.

About 10 years or so ago, the PETA and Animal Rights Whacko's got an initiative passed to stop hound hunting in this state for bears and cougars. They also included bait hunting for bears typically done by archers. They did so against sound Wildlife management and Conservation practices and science. They used the mathematical superiority of the urban bleeding heart population that they got all riled up with their campaign ad's of cats and bears being tree'd and shot down. So, now we in the woods have to deal with the consequences of the resulting huge population growth of the the cats and bears. THIS is why they are coming in contact with more people here. I have lived here now 12 years and the human population within a 10 mile radius of my home is about the same. This area is not Redmond or Lynnwood, or Bothell.

An adult cat requires 100 SQUARE miles of territory for itself and it will not tolerate others in its area unless it is a breeder during the season. So the younger, smaller, and weaker cats are pushed from one "hood" to the next and often end up going where other cats leave them be... that means close to and around humans. The expanding population due to the hunting ban has exacerbated the problem. As they take a bigger toll on the Game populations, they find a taste for domestic stock. I have to literally take my dogs out at night in the front yard with a Mag-Lite and my .38 pistol because I have seen the "eyes" in the brush around my property.

Last November in Seabeck/Silverdale only within a couple of miles of the Mall and my daughters home, a friend of mine and his nephew were hunting for deer. His nephew bagged a 7ft. 600lb. Black Bear in the midst of nearby housing developments. http://www.kitsapsun.com/photos/2008/oct/31/7...

This is yet another example of the game population encroaching upon humans, not the other way around.

I think the Hound Hunting ban was unconstitutional and should have been challenged when it passed. The Constitution should protect the legitimate rights of the minority to hunt in the fashion they were from the misguided majority and their narrow interest to the detriment of the minority. It is time to challenge it and overturn the law.

[mbednarz]

Just a comment, I live 8 miles N of Quilcene! It says Ohio, but that is because we have no DSL or Cable out here in the boondocks and I am on Sprint Cellular connection to the internet and it comes through that hub.

[clayton white]

Mike, I think your little development has encroached on wildlife habitat. I've lived out here for ten years myself and have the little Quil in back of my property. You have the outflow from Crocker lake going right past your plae a few hundred feet away and animals have historically come to streams to drink. The animal populations have always bloomed and dwindled naturally and certainly not just due to anti-hunting laws. I personally rented to a fellow on my property who shot a black bear with a bow and without a dog chasing it or baiting it. Good hunters can do that.