Cougar Troubles Mount Pend Oreille County Residents Demand Action Against Cats

FOR THE RECORD: 8-21-98 Name misspelled: Pend Oreille County Sheriff Doug Malby’s name was misspelled in a Wednesday story on the rise of cougar sightings.

Mountain lion sightings are so common here that the sheriff wants to deputize cougar hunters, and one resident asked to have snipers posted to pick off the roaming cats.

In the wake of a cougar attack that hospitalized a 5-year-old girl two weeks ago, a sometimes unruly crowd of 150 Pend Oreille County residents grilled authorities Tuesday night, demanding to know what they plan to do about increasing conflicts between cougars and humans.

Sheriff Doug Manby called the meeting to respond to complaints from citizens.

In recent months, cougars have snatched pets, scratched livestock and even slumbered on doorsteps. One woman watched as one of the great cats stepped onto her porch, nabbed the family’s Pomeranian and sauntered away. Sheriff’s deputies later tracked and killed the cougar.

“I had just come inside and my grandson had been kneeling out back in just that spot,” Darlene Manwill said. “Someone once told me cougars could smell helplessness. I believe it.”

Even a state game biologist who tried to keep the grumbling crowd calm said he came home recently to find a cougar munching a fawn in his back yard. The sight led him to hold a serious discussion with his wife - a jogger - about safety in the woods.

“It’s personal now,” said state Fish and Wildlife Department biologist Steve Zender.

State officials said 15 years of relatively moderate winters have caused cougar populations to roughly double to about 2,500 statewide. About a third to a half of them are believed to live in northeastern Washington.

In addition, since the state banned cougar hunting with hounds by an initiative in 1996, the number of cats killed by hunters has dropped from 283 to 132. Meanwhile, the number of complaints about run-ins with cougars has doubled to more than 600 a year.

A 5-year-old girl camping near Sullivan Lake in Pend Oreille County received a skull fracture and brain damage when a mountain lion grabbed her by the head two weeks ago.

Still, Zender and Manby tried to explain to the residents that the risk of being attacked by a cougar - while higher than it was 15 years ago - still pales when compared with the risk of being hit by a car or even attacked by a pit bull.

The last fatal mountain lion attack in Washington was in the 1920s.

Not all residents were convinced.

A cougar is believed to be the beast who left claw marks on one resident’s horse and mountain lions have been caught snatching kittens from a cemetery in Ione.

“I walk a lot by myself,” said Ione resident Nancy Taylor. “I now carry a gun everywhere.”

Resident Danny Schlegel said, “We didn’t raise our children to be prey for mountain lions.”

The residents’ most frequent request: lift the hunting ban. But authorities struggled to convince them that was out of their control. Manby even pointed out that nearly half of Pend Oreille County supported the ban in 1996.

“Talk to your legislators,” said state Fish and Wildlife Officer Ted Holden. “We’re not going to solve that problem tonight.”

State Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn, last week proposed a bill that would override the hunting ban.

In the meantime, Holden said, “If you’ve got a cat in your yard and you feel threatened, kill it. But that’s different from going 20 miles down the highway and stopping your car to shoot a cat in the clearcut.”

Fish and Wildlife officials are considering visiting schools to teach kids how to respond if attacked. The sheriff is also considering deputizing hound dog owners so they can help him track and kill problem animals.

And Zender reminded residents that it’s all part of living in the hills.

“You love the wildlife in this county,” he told the crowd. “All the signs on all the entrances to this county have wildlife on them.”