At 07:05 PM 8/26/1998 -0700, Jerry & Sandy wrote:
>
>
>Michael Brown wrote:
>
>Two days before, a cougar came into their yard and killed their dog and four
>of the eight pups. It killed all the male pups, and ate part of the
mother......snip

>Six miles down the road from our daughters home a man had to shoot a
grizzly...snip
ined to be a justifiable shooting.
>
>Is there a lack of food in the wild? Why are they coming into peoples yard?
>
Yes, in a way there is a lack of food. I asked this question of Bill
Castillo, head biologist at Fish & Wildife in Springfield OR when cougar
started to appear in the outlying areas. According to Bill, the problem is
as always: humans. I guess the population is growing and extending into
sufficiently remote areas that the young animals trying to establish their
own territory are unable to do so due to lack of space in the wild. An
animal that size takes alot of space to exist.

So what's happening is they are moving into areas where there is no
competition from a resident animal and that, sadly, seems to be people's
yards more and more frequently. It's a dangerous and sad situation since
there doesn't appear to be any good solution.

Peggi
Ben & Peggi Rodgers
Pacific Grove, CA (right next to Monterey)
USA
woodduck at mbay.net or peggi.rodgers at noaa.gov
http://www.mbay.net/~woodduck/



"A bird does not sing because it has an answer,
It sings because it has a song"