4/16/2008 10:06:00 AM Big cougar hunted after it kills domestic sheep
The houndsman and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officers return to the Dabob Road farm after successfully bagging the cougar that had killed a domestic sheep. - Photo courtesy of WDFW
This is the lamb left behind when a cougar killed its mother at a farm about seven miles from Quilcene. - Photo by Linda Taylor
By Mary McGrady
Barry Taylor noticed his one white sheep was missing when he did morning rounds of his livestock last Tuesday at his Dabob area farm.
"I didn't think too much about it except that she must have somehow escaped - having her dragged off by a cougar was not in the front of my mind," he said. "We own six ewes, and five of them are black and Isabelle is white, and so it was really obvious that she wasn't in the field. I looked around for her a little and then went inside and told my wife, Linda."
Linda and Barry began looking in earnest for the ewe. The ewe had left a 3-week-old lamb by itself, and this was unusual. Barry took off by vehicle to check along the roads and to ask neighbors if they'd seen his sheep. Linda began scouring the fence line.
Linda noticed that an area under the heavy-duty hog wire had been bent outward. She went through the gate and found large cougar prints on the other side. She then found drag marks and followed those for nearly 100 yards to a brushy area, where the remains of the partially eaten ewe had been hidden under branches by the cougar.
When Barry returned, they uncovered the ewe and saw that both front shoulders had been eaten. The bones of one shoulder lay several feet away. The ewe's ribs were exposed, and there were puncture wounds at the base of the skull.
Isabelle weighed about 120 pounds. She was a 3-year-old Borderleicester sheep raised for wool and meat and had been purchased as a lamb. Since the Taylors are in the wool and meat business, they figured she would have produced another lamb or two yearly until she was about 10 years old. They estimated that the income this could have produced, combined with the sale of Isabelle's wool to hand-spinners, was $1,000.
"We moved out here to be with nature, and in a way I love the idea that we could have coexisted with the large cats," Barry said. "I was told that generally cougars of that size eat deer, and there appear to be plenty of deer out here. I just wish this cougar had not begun eating livestock. Looking down on our large ewe made us realize how powerful this cougar really was, and we made the decision to call 911 and ask how to prevent this from happening in the future, either to us or to our neighbors."
The call was routed to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. By 3 p.m. April 8, WDFW Sgt. Phil Henry and officers Win Miller and Dennis Flowers, along with houndsman Bob Albaugh of Mason County, had gathered at the farm.
Within minutes, the four dogs caught a scent. A cougar, weighing at least 120 pounds, was treed about 100 yards from the kill site and was quickly dispatched with a rifle.
"Relocation of the cat was not considered an option because it had killed a domestic animal," Sgt. Henry told The Leader. "Based upon prior experience, the probability of a cougar killing more livestock is very high. Cougars are extremely transient animals, and there is virtually nowhere in this state that would be considered a safe location to release them. It would be extremely irresponsible to release a livestock-killing animal in someone else's region."
Barry and Linda are appreciative for the quick and professional job executed by the WDFW. Linda said, "We could sleep that night."
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