Do Cougars Eat People? by Kevin MacDonell for Outdoor Nova Scotia

Do Cougars Eat People?

Do Cougars Eat People?

by Kevin MacDonell

Should we protect cougars and preserve habitat? Opinions are mixed.

Cougars are a protected species in Nova Scotia, and may receive additional protection under a proposed new Wildlife Act. In New Brunswick, the government still considers the eastern cougar an endangered species and specifically singles it out for protection under the New Brunswick Endangered Species Act. Quebec also shelters the eastern cougar in its legislation, as do many eastern U.S. states.

All this might change in the wake of the COSEWIC report. Although one is tempted to view the subspecies question as an obscure academic debate between what Gerry Parker calls "lumpers" and "splitters," he thinks there's a danger protection will be withdrawn.

"The western cougar or mountain lion is not endangered, so if we say the eastern cougar is no more than an extension of the range of the western cougar, then perhaps that would remove the concern for its protection," he says. Although he does not support Fred Scott's call for a systematic search for cougars, he wants the cougars to remain protected, just in case.

Rod Cumberland predicts New Brunswick will remove the eastern cougar from the province's endangered list because of its federal indeterminate status. "That will probably cause a lot of kerfuffle among the public," he says.

"It depends on how you define eastern cougar," Fred Scott suggests. "If you define it as the cougar living in the east, there's no problem (with
continued protection). If you define it as the distinct subspecies that was
once believed to have been here, then there is a loophole problem there."

Rudy Stocek doesn't think protection is a big deal. An ecologist who
teaches at the Maritime Forest Ranger School in Fredericton, Stocek is a confirmed believer in cougars in the Maritimes -- mostly western animals or hybrids, he believes are here due to escapes, releases or migration.

Protection is not an issue as long as potential cougar habitat is
well-managed, he says. Manage the deer herd properly and cougars will do fine.

"These animals have the widest distribution of any mammal in our
hemisphere, they are extremely secretive and they have been surviving very well in a variety of habitats -- from arid to tropical -- for eons," Stocek says.

The discovery of a breeding population of cougars could spark a battle over whether to conserve or destroy them, if the U.S. experience is any
indication. While advocacy groups in the eastern U.S. are clamoring for a cougar recovery effort, people on the west coast are wondering if mountain lions are getting too close for comfort.

"There's no need to get alarmist about this, but if they are here and they
are breeding, sooner or later it's something that people are going to have to deal with," Fred Scott says.

According to an Associated Press story from early August, the rebound of the protected mountain lion in the West is a mixed blessing as the big cats lose their fear of humans. "We have a lot more people, a lot more mountain lions -- and a lot more encounters," cougar researcher Paul Beier of Northern Arizona University told an AP reporter. The most recent attack, near Missoula, Montana early last month, involved a six-year-old boy who medical officials say was lucky to have survived.

The fear and hatred that inspired early settlers to exterminate cougars
wasn't entirely irrational. After all, cougars eat people, don't they?

Cougars have killed people, says author Gerry Parker, but they aren't the bloodthirsty beasts we once thought they were. In his book, Parker cites an exhaustive study of cougar attacks in North America from 1890 to 1990. The study found accounts of ten deaths and 48 injuries from attacks.

Ten deaths in 100 years. To put that in perspective, Parker notes, dogs
kill 18 to 20 people in a single year, and injure 200,000! Today, on
British Columbia's Vancouver Island, attacks on people by western cougars are more frequent than anywhere else in North America -- but even there, attacks must be described as rare.

Still, encounters with mountain lions are becoming more frequent. Half of
the ten fatal attacks in that study happened in the last ten years. From
1992 to 1997, four more people died from attacks, two in B.C. and two in
California. Non-fatal attacks are on the rise, and so are reports of
cougars taking pets and livestock.

Subdivisions are expanding into wilderness areas, but cougars are not
giving up any ground, Fred Scott says.

"The idea that cougars are timid, shy, retiring wilderness animals that
flee at the first sign of man's presence is absolute nonsense. They just
don't do that. They stick around."

Scott doubts we will ever approach the cougar densities they have in B.C., but he doesn't think officials should wait for confirmation of their
existence before warning the public to take precautions.

"It doesn't mean you should be afraid to go in the woods, but it does mean that you should be aware that they're around, just as you should be aware that bears are around."

In the meantime, Fred Scott and his colleagues in wildlife biology are
waiting for what Scott calls "the hot tip" that results in nabbing a cougar
-- and solving the riddle once and for all.

As you walk through the Maritime woods this winter, keep your eyes open. Maybe you'll glimpse a tawny-colored ghost with a long tail. It might be a cougar, the missing piece that reveals the truth. Or it may be just another chapter in the legend that refuses to fade away.

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