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Cougars at large

Alberta’s cougar population has grown and spread eastward from the Rocky Mountains and can now be found in small pockets as far away as Saskatchewan.
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Alberta’s cougar population has grown and spread eastward from the Rocky Mountains and can now be found in small pockets as far away as Saskatchewan.

Evidence of the wildcat population comes from both the higher number of cougar sightings and their increasing mortality rate.

Statistics for 1991 showed just over 50 cougars in Alberta were killed by either hunting or other human causes. By 2008, mortality grew to well over 200.

But Kyle Knopff, who tracked cougars for three years in the Nordegg area for his PhD thesis, is not worried about the survival of cougars.

“In West Central Alberta, cougar mortality right now is actually quite high and is related to both hunting harvest and accidental snaring in wolf bait stations. So for that small part of the province, over the last four or five years, that would be sufficient potentially to control the cougar population and maybe even reduce it,” said Knopff, a wildlife biologist with Golder Associates Ltd. of Calgary.

“But the broad picture, over the whole province, is one of population increase and expansion.”

Albertans, however, are unlikely to be aware that cougars are out there.

Knopff said there’s a few reasons for that — cougars prefer to stay hidden and are extremely good at it, and humans aren’t their prey.

“Conflicts, in terms of attacks on people, is really rare. Provincially, I think there’s been one mortality in the past 100 years, so cougars aren’t a huge risk. But since they are such secretive predators, there seems to be quite a bit of fear surrounding them.”

A large cougar can be three metres long, from its head to its distinctive long tail, which it uses for balance, and weigh 80 kg.

Knopff’s research most recently appeared in the September issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management. Cougar Kill Rate and Prey Composition in a Multiprey System was written by Knopff, Aliah Adams Knopff, Andrea Kortello and Mark S. Boyce.

From 2005 to 2008, Knopff and his team tracked and fitted 44 cougars with GPS (global positioning system) collars and gathered data on almost 48,000 locations where the cougars wandered, and about 1,500 sites where cougars killed prey.

In the study area that stretched east of Rocky Mountain House and Caroline, west to the national park borders, north to Brazeau Reservoir and south to Ya Ha Tinda, data showed the number of cougars increased to about three cougars per 100 square km compared to one per 100 square km more than a decade ago.

Between about Wetaskiwin to Olds, from the Saskatchewan and B.C. borders, Alberta Fish and Wildlife reported an average of 72 cougar sightings or complaint calls per year in the last six years, with calls slowly increasing.

According to Alberta Fish and Wildlife, an average of 60 cougars per year were either hunted, shot by landowners, killed by vehicles or found dead. The majority of deaths or sightings were reported further west.

“A lot of cases there may not be any direct evidence (the cougar) actually is a problem. It hasn’t done anything. But it was seen in close proximity to somebody’s house or livestock and they’re concerned about that. That’s the most common type of call that we get,” said Nathan Webb, provincial carnivore specialist with Alberta Fish and Wildlife.

“They are a large carnivore. They have the ability and regularly do kill large animals. They do have the ability and potential to be dangerous to humans, however actual cougar attacks on people are extremely rare.”

The best way to deal with a cougar is to back away and leave the area, he said.

“If the cougar has seen them and is aware they are there and are either approaching or not leaving, the best approach is to try and intimidate the cougar.

“Cougars are a predator but they don’t want to put risk onto themselves. They want to avoid injury. So making the cougar aware you’re a person is very important. Stand up. Shout at it. Yell at it to make it very clear that you’re not one of its typical prey animals.”

If it attacks, fighting back with whatever means available is typically effective, Webb said.

Knopff said most people in Alberta approve of cougars. Nobody really wants them “in their backyard” but having a healthy cougar population is a good news wildlife story.

“Here’s a species that is actually doing reasonably well despite the fact that they are large carnivores. It’s going to be quite interesting in the future to see if people will be willing to co-exist with them as they expand or whether we’ll clamp down and restrict their continued expansion.”

Webb said the cougar increase is probably due to the increase in white tail deer because of a series of relatively mild winters and the opening up of landscape by industry, which creates more forage opportunities for deer.

And where the cat’s primary prey goes, cougars follow.

Cougar populations across North America have been gradually growing after bounties to eliminate them stopped in the 1960s and cougars became big game rather than pests.

Webb said Alberta carefully controls cougar hunting and manages the population. The most common method of hunting is with trained hounds to track cougar, giving the hunter the opportunity to avoid killing females with kittens or young cougars, and shoot to kill ethically and quickly.

Cougar hunting season runs from Dec. 1 to the end of February.

“Alberta’s cougars tend to be pretty large compared to elsewhere in North America so it is a top destination for cougar hunters from elsewhere for sure.”

Knopff’s thesis is online at http://repository.library.ualberta.ca/dspace/bitstream/10048/1247/1/Knopff_Thesis_Jul01_2010.pdf

szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com