February 17, 2011 in Sports, Outdoors

Wenatchee man captures eight cougars in one photo

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Courtesy photo photo

A cougar snarls as eight cougars congregate on a rock cliff near Moses Coulee in Central Washington in this image captured Dec. 23, 2010, by a remote motion-sensor camera put up by Brad Thomas, a Wenatchee hunter.
(Full-size photo)(All photos)

A Wenatchee hunter has a right to be proud for his photo showing a pride of mountain lions on the Douglas County ranch where he has permission to hunt.

The black and white trail-cam image, which shows EIGHT cougars in one spot (web readers click on “photos” above), has gone viral in Northwest websites and e-mail lists since he first released it to acquaintances on Christmas Day.

• Wildlife enthusiasts were in awe of the scene, which few people will see in their lifetimes.

• Alarmists were ready to take up arms against the lion onslaught on the Central Washington deer population.

• Skeptics assumed it was just another Internet hoax – at best just a hungry pen of cougars in a zoo.

• But a Washington Fish and Wildlife Department biologist who received a CD of this photo and all of the hunter’s remote camera cougar images raised his eyebrows and called it, “a magnificent one-time observation; not unheard of, but it’s very rare.”

“Cougars are notoriously territorial,” said Jon Gallie, the state wildlife biologist in Wenatchee. “Seeing eight in one spot is a wildlife jackpot.”

“I’d like to say I knew what I was doing, but I just got lucky,” said Brad, the hunter who asked that his last name be withheld. “I was trying to get photos of bobcats.

“But this is the second year I’ve had a (motion-activated) camera in that location and I’ve got images of some coyotes, about five deer and one skunk, but I can’t tell you how many pictures I have of cougars – a lot.”

Most of the e-mails circulating say the cougars were congregating to feed on a dead cow. But Brad and Gallie both confirmed there was no carcass in the area.

“The ranchers had carcasses in other areas near Moses Coulee, but they said no cougar tracks were in the snow around them,” Gallie said.

Coyotes, eagles, ravens and magpies clean up carrion pretty fast, but cougars generally like their meat a little fresher.

Brad said the camera was mounted on an old cow trail along a rimrock cliff. “It’s the first wide spot in the trail with a view of the huge valley below,” Brad said.

“It’s a perfect place to stop and scan for prey below,” Gallie said, noting that 300-500 deer might be wintering in a 5-mile stretch of that valley when forced down by snow.

“That’s why the cougars were there,” Gallie said. “When the snow clears up at higher elevations and the deer disperse, you won’t see that many cougars in one area again.

“The kittens might have been sitting up there sometimes while their mothers were down hunting,” he added, noting other images of a smaller group of cougars.

Gary Koehler, the WDFW carnivore specialist and world-class authority on cougars, said the photo of eight cats likely includes two adult females and their litters.

“We and others have documented two related females converging with their litters on occasion,” Koehler said in an e-mail.  “This is likely a result of a female with her current litter and her female offspring from a previous litter and her kittens.

“Female offspring often set up home range adjacent to their mother and, as demonstrated from radio GPS marked animals, these adjacent females may get together along their home range boundaries with each’s litter.

“In fact it has been documented where kittens from one female may join up (adopted) with the other litter; and perhaps, as has been documented, go back to their original litter when the mothers join up at some time.”

Gallie said the photo of eight cougars has caused a buzz among hunters that the hills are full of cougars devouring deer.

“We’ve been going to sportsmen club meetings to try to explain that isn’t the case,” he said.

WDFW studies verify that only half of the cougar kittens born each year survive to be a year old, he said.

Of the kittens that live to their first birthday, only about a third survive to be 2 years old, he added.

“The photo does not mean there are eight cats in that area each killing a deer a week. The mothers still kill only about one animal a week, but when there are three mouths to feed, something’s got to give. The runt doesn’t eat as much, and eventually doesn’t make it.”

Brad said he’ll go a couple of weeks without a getting a cougar photo on the camera and then a cougar will suddenly show up one day. All of the photos are automatically time-stamped.

The only photo as interesting as the image of eight cats occurred when he went back after Christmas to check his camera again.

“The first picture is of me leaving the camera after setting it up two weeks previous,” he said. “The next image is of a cougar coming down the same trail in my tracks just minutes after I’d left.”

Contact Rich Landers at (509) 459 5508 or e-mail richl@spokesman.com.

12 comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  oneanddone on February 17 at 4:19 a.m.

  Hey Rich, no photo, no link? Annoying.
  I do have to laugh though at those who wail about 8 cougars decimating the deer population. Have you morons actually looked out your window? The deer population could use some decimating. Their numbers have run amok. The NW could use a few years, or longer, of no license or limit for deer. They’re turning into oversized rodents.

• 

  richl on February 17 at 6:18 a.m.

  Photo’s there now. Sorry.

• 

  PhiltheBibliophil on February 17 at 8:14 a.m.

  The ultimate hunting experience, Cougars. While you’re hunting them, they’re hunting you!

• 

  Orange on February 17 at 9:21 a.m.

  Yep, been stalked before. The hair on the back of my neck told me to “turn around slowly”. Sure enough, about 30 yards behind me. Near Usk.

• 

  Cheezwhiz on February 17 at 10:52 a.m.

  About six years ago, I was deer hunting in Worley. Got to my spot about an hour and a half before the sun came up. It started snowing as I walked to the spot, and when the light came, there were cougar prints in the snow less than 10 feet from me. It walked in an arch around me. I never heard it or knew it was there.

  Another time, I was at CDA lake on the same property in Worley. I walked up the road and heard a scuffle in the brush. Crashing and snorting. I threw rocks down into the brush and it kept going for another five minutes or so. I went and got my buddy and he and I walked up a road on the other side of the ravine. We saw nothing and he thought I was making something up. I told him I knew it was something big, because I could tell the snorting was coming from big lungs and nostrils. It wasn’t turkeys. On our way back down the road, there was a dead 6 month old whitetail buck fawn in the middle of the road. It had teeth marks in it’s neck and it’s rear end was clawed up a little bit. We left it there, but the cougar never came back for it.

  In my many years of full hunting seasons in the woods, I have never seen a cougar, except one that crossed in front of my truck. I have seen lots of sign, but never a cougar, and I made a habit of looking in tree tops.

• 

  ericdx on February 17 at 12:42 p.m.

  Beautiful pictures. I saw a cougar years ago on out property near Elk. It walked out in a clearing in the middle of the day maybe 200 yards from our house. We found it a few days later, dead. When the Fish and Game guys came and collected it, they said it died of complications of old age, that was why it came out like that, it was looking for easy food, since its condition shoed it was unable to hunt for significant game. Even in its old age, it was a majestic animal. Scary, but majestic. These photos are incredible, and probably nearly a once in a lifetime sight.
  Of course I am also old enough to remember seeing Butch VI, the last of the live cougar mascots at WSU, and I have always thought they were magnificent animals. Good ones to stay far away from, but majestic.

• 

  PhiltheBibliophil on February 18 at 3:15 p.m.

  My in-laws had a place up at the end of Lake Wenatchee about 2 blocks from the Cougar Inn (before a bunch of Microsoft dudes came in, bought it and tore it down to build “2nd homes”. We had a pride of cougars up there. Some nites we’d hear ‘em “scream”! That would make even the hair on our dogs back stand up!

• 

  Concernedreader2 on February 18 at 6:32 p.m.

  If its not to late Please remove the location data and make the surrounding data about where these animals where photographed more vague. It would be horrible for a bunch of hicks to read this and then go cougar hunting. And things like that have happened before, some one will show a “friend” where a bunch of rare animals congregate and then the next year those animals are missing, most likely captured or killed.

• 

  Cheezwhiz on February 20 at 4:33 p.m.

  Cougars aren’t rare. They are just extremely sneaky. They are everywhere, but you just don’t see them. There are many on the South Hill, 5 Mile, and Liberty Lake. There is video of a cougar taking a deer down on Hartson (8th) and Freya, in the yard of the retirement home. That happened just a couple years ago. That’s not any where near any woods. Animal control gets calls for cougars about once a week. Nope, not rare.

• 

  monkeyman on February 21 at 9:35 p.m.

  Looks like these pictures are high definition/quality a la National Geographic.

  “Brad, the hunter” should check in with Bushnell to see if they will buy the rights to these pics…$$$

• 

  richl on February 22 at 12:38 p.m.

  Monkeyman is on the right track: National Geographic picked up on the story and contacted me today for access to Brad of Wenatchee, and his trail-cam cougar photos.

• 

  NathanJ on February 25 at 9:04 a.m.

  Lets keep the rednecks with guns away from the big cats.
  Let nature do what it does naturally.