By Erik Lacitis
Seattle Times staff reporter
One man was killed and another taken to Harborview Medical Center after they were attacked by a cougar while riding bicycles around 11 a.m. Saturday in the woods in the Snoqualmie-North Bend area, said the King County Sheriff’s Office.
Using a hound-dog tracker, agents for the state’s Fish & Wildlife Police shot and killed the cougar a little before 3 p.m., said Capt. Alan Myers, with the agency.
This was just the second fatal cougar attack in the state in the last 100 years, according to the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife (WDFW). Fifteen others, before Saturday, were nonfatal.
The injured man, 31, called for help on his cellphone, said Sgt. Ryan Abbott of the Sheriff’s Office. He was initially listed in serious condition at Harborview, but by late afternoon was upgraded to satisfactory.
Abbott said the attack took place near North Fork Road Southeast and Lake Hancock Road, a Snoqualmie address.
The hours after the attack dragged on as responders waited for word that wildlife agents had killed the cougar, and they could go and retrieve the dead man’s body.
“We have a manual, and we go step by step, said Rich Beausoleil, the state’s bear and cougar specialist.
“When we do catch an animal, we need to know we caught the right animal,” he said.
That includes collecting DNA from the killed cougar and making sure it matches DNA from the victims.
Finally, nearly five hours after the attack, the hounds found the cougar.
When he first heard about the cougar attack, said Beausoleil, “My grief is with the victim.”
He said that “it’s hard to say” what the public’s reaction will be to the incident. “It’s such a personal thing. Some people will recognize the rarity of it.”
In the 94 years since the last fatal mauling, the state has recorded 18 incidents it classifies as cougar attacks, with 40 percent considered serious, such as requiring stitches.
Most take place in summer and fall, when people are alone in the woods while walking, jogging or biking, and have a surprise encounter, according to the agency.
Cougars, also known as mountain lions and pumas, are a protected species, said Beausoleil. Each year, the state allows 250 cougars to be hunted and killed in 50 designated zones.
There are 2,100 cougars labeled as “independent” in this state, meaning they’re kittens dependent on their mothers.
That population has been stable for the 15 years he’s been with the agency, said Beausoleil.
He said that cougars are territorial, and so limit their own population growth to about two cougars per 100 square kilometers, or 39 square miles. That would have four cougars in land about the size of Seattle.
Emotions can run high after a report such as today’s.
“Hopefully, nobody will break the law,” said Beausoleil.
Cougar attacks are so rare that in all of North Amererica in the last 100 years, roughly 25 fatalities and 95 nonfatal attacks have been reported, according to WDFW. More have been reported in the Western United States and Canada over the past 20 years than in the previous 80 years.
The agency says a high percentage of cougars attacking domestic animals or people are 1- to 2-year-old cougars that have become independent of their mothers.
It adds, “When these young animals, particularly males, leave home to search for territory of their own, and encounter territory already occupied by an older male cougar, the older one will drive off the younger one, killing it if it resists. Some young cougars are driven across miles of countryside in search of an unoccupied territory.”
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/eastside/1-dead-1-injured-in-cougar-attack-on-eastside/
