I used to work at night and was only able to see 3 cougars in twenty years. They are ghosts and by the time you identify the moonshadow is a cougar it is gone. Dep of Wildlife tracks sightings, and they are anywhere forests are. They have a twenty mile or so area, and the person that referenced the ban on dogs being used on cougar hunts is right, but the real problem was younger cougars could not get an area in the wilderness. So with the increased population pressure the young cougars started encroaching on more developed areas.
Northwest Trek has a cougar exhibit, and they can drop 50 feet out of a tree onto prey. They put barriers on the trees to keep them in.
Amazing predator.
DK
The “this is mountain lion country”. Just where the hell is that? A trail cam got a picture of a cougar in central Missouri last year. This is about 110 miles northwest of St Louis. When you go out in the woods it ain’t a petting zoo. Act acordingly. We have them coming into the city limits in Idaho. We still hunt them and they are not comfortable with us and we are cautious with them.
Cougars can also jump 20 feet straight up from a sitting start. They are bad mo flixms.
I live less than 10 miles from NW Trek.