Posted on 08/30/2007 2:00:01 PM PDT by Daffynition
CANMORE, Alta. -- A combination of warm winters and Alberta's population boom is causing a recent jump in cougar attacks, says a spokesman for the government agency that collects cougar-related data.
The province's cougar population has jumped this year because recent warm winters have pushed up the population of deer, elk and moose -- the cougars' natural prey, said Darcy Whiteside with Alberta Sustainable Resource Development.
"These are natural fluctuations," Whiteside said on Wednesday.
"But they're compounded by the fact that municipalities are expanding into natural areas. A lot more people are living, camping and hiking in those areas, too."
Wildlife officials spent Tuesday tracking a hungry and possibly sick cougar that attacked a family dog in Canmore, Alta. While the cougar hasn't been found, the dog is recovering at a veterinary clinic with severe head injuries after it was attacked and carried away by the cat.
No humans have been mauled by cougars in Alberta since 2005, but the number of sightings has jumped: as of Aug. 2, 136 sightings were reported. That's already 17 more than the total sightings in 2006, and 19 more than in 2005, said Whiteside.
"Fish Creek Park, for example, is very close to the built-up area of Calgary,"Whiteside said of natural areas where cougars were spotted this summer.
And because cougars don't hibernate over the winter, Albertans should expect encounters with the cats to continue, Whiteside said.
In British Columbia, a 12-year-old boy was camping with his family in the interior on Aug. 1, when he was mauled by a big cat. The attack left him with 200 stitches in his head.
The month before, a woman was forced to fend off an aggressive cougar that had been stalking her as she hiked alone on a popular trail in Kooney National Park, B.C.
More than 90% of all fatal North American cougar/human encounters since 1890 have taken place on Vancouver Island. Seven people have been killed by cougars between 1890 and 1990.
Most recently, 30-year-old Frances Frost was skiing on the Cascade Trail, 12 kilometres from Banff, when she was killed by a cougar in January 2001.
In 1996, Cindy Parolin was killed while defending her young son who had been knocked off a horse by a cougar in Princeton, 250 kilometres east of Vancouver.
A cougar also killed an eight-year-old boy in 1992 in a schoolyard in Kyoquot, B.C., on the northwest side of Vancouver Island.
OK, you can adjust the thermostat in my office.
There isn’t one word in that article about “climate change” yet that’s what they put as the headline.
> There isn’t one word in that article about “climate change”
> yet that’s what they put as the headline.
An astute observation.
Not only that, but they fail to mention that hunting of cougar has diminished exponentially in recent years. I don’t know for sure, but they may even be a “protected” species.
Too bad prenatal humans are not extended that same status.
Exactly what I was thinking. “Recent warm winters” doesn’t make a “climate change”.
Quotas. Canadian law requires every fifth headline be about the catastrophic effects of global warming.
HUH?
Do they get pi$$y when they get hot?
[Back up the truck....another pantload!]
Of course the fact that they are "protected" and not treated like the fatal vermin that they are had nothing to do with it?
: non-expert, but conscious.
Gee... I wonder... increased population?
So, where’s Kim Bauer when the cougars are loose?
Good, the temperature was making me....grumpy.
OK, everybody who remembers growing up and watching “Charlie the Lonesome Cougar” step forward and give this thread a big BTTT!
Have you heard about the lonesome cougar
beaten by the queen of hearts everytime...
"These are natural fluctuations," Whiteside said on Wednesday.
:’D
Mew really know what you’re doin’. ;’)
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