Walkers alerted to cougar perched in tree at Bellingham’s Whatcom Falls Park
Apparently good social distancing guidelines during the coronavirus pandemic haven’t made it to everyone, yet. Wildlife has not gotten the word.
Walkers in Bellingham’s Whatcom Falls Park Friday morning, May 8, happened upon an unexpected visitor when they found a cougar perched in a tree.
Dereck Urbanowski told The Bellingham Herald in a message that he was alerted to the cougar at approximately 8 a.m. while he was walking his dog from Scudder Pond, just after he passed the intersection with the railroad trail.
“I was not the first person to see it,” Urbanowski wrote. “Not sure how big but it looked like a full grown adult. My best guess, I do have an ecology and wildlife background, is that it was hunting and got scared with all of the people around.”
Urbanowski snapped photos and video of the cougar, as did Timothy Duryee, who told The Herald in an email that the big cat just checked people out from the tree.
Friday’s cougar siting was not the first in Whatcom County in the past few days.
The Whatcom Breaking News Facebook page reported a large cougar being spotted at approximately 6:20 a.m. Wednesday, May 6, in the 1300 block of East Smith Road.
If you love Whatcom Wildlife
Join us in our Facebook group Whatcom Wildlife. The Bellingham Herald created this group because we know so many people love to take pictures and video of the animals around us. And while we might want to publish a photo from the site, we’ll always ask the photographer’s permission first.
This story was originally published May 8, 2020 at 3:30 PM.
