Residents need to decide how they want to coexist with predators | Opinion
Recent cougar sightings in the Geneva area and the resulting media coverage have created alarm and concern among Whatcom County residents. With three schools and children nearby, Geneva residents want the cougar removed.
Cougars don’t appear in neighborhoods at random. They follow prey. Our yards provide forage, food, and shelter for deer, both in the winter when new growth is scarce, and spring through summer, when plant growth is abundant. Although feeding wildlife is illegal in the state, homeowners still put out food for deer. These actions may feel compassionate, but they are profoundly harmful.
Feeding deer is harmful because it disrupts their digestive systems, leading to fatal illnesses like rumen acidosis from unnatural diets like corn and grains. It causes dangerous overcrowding that facilitates the rapid spread of diseases like chronic wasting disease, now found in eastern Washington. It creates unnatural dependence, and can even cause starvation despite a full stomach.
Feeding creates dependence, draws deer into traffic corridors, and alters migration patterns that once kept herds dispersed and healthy. We are reshaping wildlife behavior — and predators respond accordingly.
Since the Geneva area is on the fringe of Galbraith Mountain, Lookout Preserve and dense forested areas, it’s no wonder a cougar might wander into a neighborhood where deer hang out.
Relocating a cougar and plunking it down in another male cougar’s range is rarely a humane or effective option. Male cougars don’t share their range with other males, while females share it with other females and males. A male cougar’s range is 50 to 150 square miles, and a female cougar’s range is half that. Their social structure translates into low populations of resident cougars, approximately four cougars per 100 square miles.
Moving a young cougar into an occupied range can result in violent conflict, starvation, or the animal attempting to travel long distances back through populated areas — creating greater risk for both people and the cougar
The cougar, presumed to be a young male, has not shown aggression toward people.
Recent cougar attacks in Washington, hyped by the media without all the facts, have often included young cougars who were orphaned because their mother was killed. Lacking their mother to provide for them, these cougar young become starved and unsocialized. Despite the media’s portrayal of cougars, cougar attacks on humans are rare. In Washington state, there have been two fatal cougar attacks and approximately 20 other recorded encounters that resulted in human injury in the last 100 years.
In comparison, the homicide rate in Washington, murders perpetrated by humans, is 3.8 per 100,000. People accept far higher risks daily without hesitation.
Some falsely blame cougars for declining deer populations. WDFW’s Predator-Prey Project showed cougars (and wolves) don’t negatively impact deer and ungulate populations. WDFW has also shown that most ungulate populations aren’t in decline.
I grew up in eastern Washington and own property in Chelan, 16 miles out of town. Cougars have sheltered under decks during harsh winter weather and moved silently across neighboring lands. I have heard a female’s mating call 100 feet away in the dense creek foliage. Cougars are photographed on cameras crossing neighbors’ properties. Given cougar range limitations, these sightings remain infrequent.
Neighbors don’t encourage cougars. We make noise, honk horns and recognize our place in a deer migratory route that attracts cougars. We are vigilant and aware.
A couple of years ago, a cougar killed a deer 15 feet from a home. Rather than run the cougar away from its fresh kill or harm it, neighbors put up signs, avoided the area, and allowed the cougar to finish feeding. Neighbors were respectful of the cougar’s right to coexist.
In contrast, when a cougar preyed on a Bellingham homeowner’s unattended and unprotected sheep at night, the cougar was killed. The onus for predation lay with humans, not the cougar. Cougars don’t think about who “owns” their food, or whether it’s “OK” or permissible. They do what cougars do, and they die for it. They don’t understand our arbitrary property line demarcations.
Whatcom County residents need to decide how they want to coexist with predators, including cougars. As we encroach on nature and force wildlife out of their traditional range, we need to consider our role in the preservation of biodiversity and habitat.
It is important to protect our children and ourselves. It is possible to do so without endangering wildlife. We can educate ourselves and our children, protect our pets and keep them indoors at night, make noise to alert predators, carry bear spray when in the woods, and discourage deer from our yards.
We value Whatcom County for its wildness, and we already live with wildlife. The question is whether we will do so responsibly.
Susan Kane-Ronning, PhD, is co-chair of the Washington Sierra Club Wildlife Committee. She is a licensed psychologist with a private practice in Bellingham.