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The Cat's at the Door. We'd Better Adapt
By Jo Deurbrouck and Dean Miller
Sunday, June 24, 2001; Page B03
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho -- David Woodward, night manager at the Empress Hotel, listened calmly to the parking attendant who swore he had just seen a cougar walk into the underground garage. Of course Woodward didn't believe him: The Empress is no wilderness retreat. It's the most elegant landmark in downtown Victoria, British Columbia; the bellmen dress in livery and the best room fetches $1,000 a night.
A cougar among the Cadillacs? Not bloody likely, the manager thought. Still, he decided to investigate. Making the rounds of the garage in a van, he came upon a woman rummaging in her trunk. At the word "cougar," she slammed the lid and ran for the elevator. Woodward and his driver were still chuckling when something big glided through the van's headlights.
Fire? Woodward knew what to do. Earthquake? It was right there in the emergency procedures manual. Predator in your 300-car garage? Impossible. But what Woodward faced that night in 1992 was no anomaly. It was merely one of the more incongruous signs that the 100-year-old age of conservation was ending, a victim of its own success, and that a new era -- call it the age of coexistence -- with new rules and new imperatives, was about to begin.
More and more often, humans are running smack into wildlife where they never expected to find it. Most of these encounters are easy to dismiss -- deer nibbling rosebushes in Pittsburgh, coyote howls echoing through Los Angeles suburbs. Others are more disconcerting: Nine days ago, nurses at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville spied a black bear outside the emergency room. And still others are tragic. In January, a cougar stalked and killed a cross-country skier on a popular trail near Canmore, Alberta. The next month, another cougar mauled a bicyclist on Vancouver Island, B.C.
Clearly, we can no longer pretend that the human world and the "natural" one are separate. We are not the benevolent zookeepers of the conservation age, protecting a few precious specimens in habitats far removed from our homes. Other species, both predator and prey, now thrive among us, and confront us with a new reality: Our lives must now accommodate inconvenience and even risk. And to manage these effects we must accept what we are: the most powerful -- and the only thoughtful -- predator in the food chain.
Conservation was a movement born of desperation. By the late 1800s, industrial market hunting, clear-cutting and other exploitation had taken their toll on natural habitats. In 1890, it was estimated that only 300,000 white-tailed deer remained in the entireUnited States; people counted themselves lucky to see one. Branta canadensis maxima, the Western subspecies of migratory Canada geese, was thought to be nearly extinct. Species such as the bison and passenger pigeon, which had once amazed with their sheer numbers, no longer existed in the wild.
The widely embraced effort to save such wildlife worked for many species. Somewhere between 15 million and 25 million deer inhabit this country today. Descendants of Canada geese bred in captivity now number some 4 million. Several kinds of large predators, including coyotes, black bears and alligators, also have recovered. In recent decades, such expanding species have encountered, and adapted to, what we call "humanscape," the rapidly expanding habitat -- city, suburb and park -- dominated by people.
Cougars have been among the biggest of conservation's surprise successes. Forty years ago, they were considered endangered. Today, their numbers are believed to be at historic highs in western Canada and across the western United States into Texas. Once thought to be shy denizens of remote wilderness, cougars now drag deer kills under suburban porches and feed upon pet food -- or pets -- in backyards. They've been killed under pool tables, in motor homes and cabins, been chased out of schoolyards and even classrooms. One report from Colorado described a cougar sitting on the roof of a house, batting at a weather vane. Cougar attacks on humans are rare, but not nearly so rare as in the past. Only one attack was reported in the United States and Canada in the 1940s. In the 1990s, there were 53.
In the face of these changes, humans have proven slower to adapt. We still treat urban cougars like rare and amazing alien visitors best "managed" by seeing them safely home. Take the case of the Empress cougar. David Woodward finally called game warden Bob Smirl, who engineered a classic conservation-age ending to the drama. The animal was darted and carried out of the garage into a cheering crowd.
Smirl displayed the unconscious beast on his tailgate. He showed the crowd its claws and teeth, and answered questions about how the cat would be returned to its world. Then more than 50 people filed by to touch it. One woman snuggled her face into its belly fur. "Thank you," she told Smirl. "This is the most wonderful experience I've ever had."
In the age of coexistence, game agencies will have to tell the truth, even if it ruins a wonderful experience. The truth is that sometimes it's kinder and wiser to kill, in defense of territory, and in the best interests of the animal. It's unlikely that this cat would have wandered so far into such unfamiliar habitat if something better remained. Cougar populations are thought to be extremely dense on the island, and cougars are territorial: That relocated cat has to fight or grovel its way through territory after territory as it tries to find, somewhere, somehow, safe ground. Most relocated cougars do not survive.
In the age of coexistence, we must accept that humanscapes are not exempt from other species'search for usable habitat. And we will have to take a lesson from the experience of game managers on Northern California's Angel Island. Beginning in the 1960s, after the entire island became a park, the suddenly unhunted deer population alternately burgeoned and "crashed." Game managers wanted to thin the herd but, pressured by animal rights activists, they instead tried relocation to the mainland (nearly all the relocated animals died within a year), sterilization (not enough does could be captured) and ignoring the problem. Proposals to reintroduce the animals' traditional predators, either four-legged or two-, were greeted with horror. Meanwhile, again and again, the deer became so numerous and hungry that they pestered picnickers for candy bars and peanut butter sandwiches. Then, by the hundreds, they starved.
Finally, the activists gave in. Regular culling hunts now keep Angel Island deer populations healthy and stable. The age of conservation should have taught us that species like deer can live on golf courses and in rose gardens, but they can't adapt to life without predators. And for those predators, the reverse is true. What almost destroyed cougars was the 19th-century's mass slaughter of deer. Cougars probably cannot adapt to life without their staple food. Barring that, there may be little they can't adjust to, including city life.
In the age of coexistence, we will have to let go of sentiment and face facts. Sometimes that will mean being predator. Occasionally, it may mean being prey. It will always mean accepting -- and using -- rules of habitat and adaptability that we didn't make. If the world was big enough once for separate human and natural worlds, it no longer is.
Jo Deurbrouck, a freelance writer in Idaho, and Dean Miller, editor of the Idaho Falls Post Register, are the authors of "Cat Attacks: True Stories and Hard Lessons from Cougar Country" (Sasquatch Books).
© 2001 The Washington Post Company
By Jo Deurbrouck and Dean Miller
Sunday, June 24, 2001; Page B03
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho -- David Woodward, night manager at the Empress Hotel, listened calmly to the parking attendant who swore he had just seen a cougar walk into the underground garage. Of course Woodward didn't believe him: The Empress is no wilderness retreat. It's the most elegant landmark in downtown Victoria, British Columbia; the bellmen dress in livery and the best room fetches $1,000 a night.
A cougar among the Cadillacs? Not bloody likely, the manager thought. Still, he decided to investigate. Making the rounds of the garage in a van, he came upon a woman rummaging in her trunk. At the word "cougar," she slammed the lid and ran for the elevator. Woodward and his driver were still chuckling when something big glided through the van's headlights.
Fire? Woodward knew what to do. Earthquake? It was right there in the emergency procedures manual. Predator in your 300-car garage? Impossible. But what Woodward faced that night in 1992 was no anomaly. It was merely one of the more incongruous signs that the 100-year-old age of conservation was ending, a victim of its own success, and that a new era -- call it the age of coexistence -- with new rules and new imperatives, was about to begin.
More and more often, humans are running smack into wildlife where they never expected to find it. Most of these encounters are easy to dismiss -- deer nibbling rosebushes in Pittsburgh, coyote howls echoing through Los Angeles suburbs. Others are more disconcerting: Nine days ago, nurses at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville spied a black bear outside the emergency room. And still others are tragic. In January, a cougar stalked and killed a cross-country skier on a popular trail near Canmore, Alberta. The next month, another cougar mauled a bicyclist on Vancouver Island, B.C.
Clearly, we can no longer pretend that the human world and the "natural" one are separate. We are not the benevolent zookeepers of the conservation age, protecting a few precious specimens in habitats far removed from our homes. Other species, both predator and prey, now thrive among us, and confront us with a new reality: Our lives must now accommodate inconvenience and even risk. And to manage these effects we must accept what we are: the most powerful -- and the only thoughtful -- predator in the food chain.
Conservation was a movement born of desperation. By the late 1800s, industrial market hunting, clear-cutting and other exploitation had taken their toll on natural habitats. In 1890, it was estimated that only 300,000 white-tailed deer remained in the entireUnited States; people counted themselves lucky to see one. Branta canadensis maxima, the Western subspecies of migratory Canada geese, was thought to be nearly extinct. Species such as the bison and passenger pigeon, which had once amazed with their sheer numbers, no longer existed in the wild.
The widely embraced effort to save such wildlife worked for many species. Somewhere between 15 million and 25 million deer inhabit this country today. Descendants of Canada geese bred in captivity now number some 4 million. Several kinds of large predators, including coyotes, black bears and alligators, also have recovered. In recent decades, such expanding species have encountered, and adapted to, what we call "humanscape," the rapidly expanding habitat -- city, suburb and park -- dominated by people.
Cougars have been among the biggest of conservation's surprise successes. Forty years ago, they were considered endangered. Today, their numbers are believed to be at historic highs in western Canada and across the western United States into Texas. Once thought to be shy denizens of remote wilderness, cougars now drag deer kills under suburban porches and feed upon pet food -- or pets -- in backyards. They've been killed under pool tables, in motor homes and cabins, been chased out of schoolyards and even classrooms. One report from Colorado described a cougar sitting on the roof of a house, batting at a weather vane. Cougar attacks on humans are rare, but not nearly so rare as in the past. Only one attack was reported in the United States and Canada in the 1940s. In the 1990s, there were 53.
In the face of these changes, humans have proven slower to adapt. We still treat urban cougars like rare and amazing alien visitors best "managed" by seeing them safely home. Take the case of the Empress cougar. David Woodward finally called game warden Bob Smirl, who engineered a classic conservation-age ending to the drama. The animal was darted and carried out of the garage into a cheering crowd.
Smirl displayed the unconscious beast on his tailgate. He showed the crowd its claws and teeth, and answered questions about how the cat would be returned to its world. Then more than 50 people filed by to touch it. One woman snuggled her face into its belly fur. "Thank you," she told Smirl. "This is the most wonderful experience I've ever had."
In the age of coexistence, game agencies will have to tell the truth, even if it ruins a wonderful experience. The truth is that sometimes it's kinder and wiser to kill, in defense of territory, and in the best interests of the animal. It's unlikely that this cat would have wandered so far into such unfamiliar habitat if something better remained. Cougar populations are thought to be extremely dense on the island, and cougars are territorial: That relocated cat has to fight or grovel its way through territory after territory as it tries to find, somewhere, somehow, safe ground. Most relocated cougars do not survive.
In the age of coexistence, we must accept that humanscapes are not exempt from other species'search for usable habitat. And we will have to take a lesson from the experience of game managers on Northern California's Angel Island. Beginning in the 1960s, after the entire island became a park, the suddenly unhunted deer population alternately burgeoned and "crashed." Game managers wanted to thin the herd but, pressured by animal rights activists, they instead tried relocation to the mainland (nearly all the relocated animals died within a year), sterilization (not enough does could be captured) and ignoring the problem. Proposals to reintroduce the animals' traditional predators, either four-legged or two-, were greeted with horror. Meanwhile, again and again, the deer became so numerous and hungry that they pestered picnickers for candy bars and peanut butter sandwiches. Then, by the hundreds, they starved.
Finally, the activists gave in. Regular culling hunts now keep Angel Island deer populations healthy and stable. The age of conservation should have taught us that species like deer can live on golf courses and in rose gardens, but they can't adapt to life without predators. And for those predators, the reverse is true. What almost destroyed cougars was the 19th-century's mass slaughter of deer. Cougars probably cannot adapt to life without their staple food. Barring that, there may be little they can't adjust to, including city life.
In the age of coexistence, we will have to let go of sentiment and face facts. Sometimes that will mean being predator. Occasionally, it may mean being prey. It will always mean accepting -- and using -- rules of habitat and adaptability that we didn't make. If the world was big enough once for separate human and natural worlds, it no longer is.
Jo Deurbrouck, a freelance writer in Idaho, and Dean Miller, editor of the Idaho Falls Post Register, are the authors of "Cat Attacks: True Stories and Hard Lessons from Cougar Country" (Sasquatch Books).
© 2001 The Washington Post Company