MICHAEL DUNNE: I'm Michael Dunne. We did a story about Cougar predation on livestock a few months back. Much of that discussion was with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, an individual who euthanizes troubled cougars and a livestock owner who's lost animals to mountain lions. Today, on the show, we're going to bring you a conversation with a mountain lion expert and a researcher with Oregon State University who also leads a program of non-lethal response to predation on livestock. They both dispel some myths about cougars and explain that the danger to humans from these big cats is almost too small to measure, and that the danger to livestock can be managed effectively and humanely for both farm animals and cougars alike. Sheanna Steinglass, who is an Oregon State University professor and the program coordinator for the Benton County non-lethal deterrence grant program, and Mark Elbroch, he is the director of Panthera's Puma program - thank you both for coming on and chatting with us.
SHEANNA STEINGASS/ MARK ELBROCH: Thanks for having us. Yeah. Thanks so much for having us.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Mark, I'm going to start with you, you know, can you kind of, first of all, tell us what Panthera is, but then also, you know, as an expert, tell us about the cougar population here in Oregon, and kind of give us a, you know, I don't know, a Little bit of myth busting about cougars, specifically around danger to humans, danger to livestock, their role in the ecosystem. I know that's a lot, but kind of give us that 30,000-foot view to sort of set the stage.
MARK ELBROCH: Yeah, that's, that's, those are big questions. So, I work for Panthera. It's a global nonprofit organization that focuses on science and conservation of wild cats and the places they live. Okay, so in the United States, our primary focus is the Mountain Lion, also called the cougar, Puma, Florida panther, and literally hundreds of other names across the Americas. It is a widespread species, one of the widest distributions of any animal in the Americas, at least in terms of terrestrial native species. It is still widespread in the United States and Canada. It has. It is absent in, if we look at it that way, in about a third or slightly more of its historic range. They used to stretch Pacific Ocean to Atlantic Ocean, and from sort of the we'll call it, the middle of Canada, all the way down to the tip of South America, and so today, they are beginning to repopulate portions east of the Rocky Mountains, but not too far yet, and in the east, they are only resident in Florida, where They were rediscovered in the early 1970s and have since been listed as endangered and receive a tremendous amount of conservation support to sustain that small population. Myth Busting. Well, the things I usually tell folks about this species are they're much like house cats in terms of behavior. So, if you know a cat or own a cat, you know a lot about mountain lions already. They are super curious and super cautious. So this species likes to watch and listen. They are cats you've if you've experienced a cat, like encountering a cat that just sits and looks at you, that's just being a cat. That's nothing to be worried about. It's not dangerous. It's just being a cat. They don't respond as well to sound as other large carnivores. So sometimes, if you know, people will even do things like shoot guns or blast noise, and they expect the cat to flee, and sometimes it doesn't. Again, that is totally normal. It's just being a cat. Things I would emphasize besides their cautious nature, because they really are a super, super cautious species. I tell folks like; I would never climb into a hole. With a bobcat, you would just be you would exit that hole with lots of scratches and bites. Whereas I have done those countless times with mountain lions or cougars and never worried about it at all. They're just timid. They want to escape. They're always looking for an exit route.
MICHAEL DUNNE: If you were to look at the Cougar population in Oregon - Is it safe to say that it has been a bit of a successful return, especially with regard to, you know, making hunting with dogs outlawed. Have they come back? Has it been a success in terms of restocking the population of Pumas?
MARK ELBROCH: Mountain lions, historically, absolutely should be one of our proudest moments, and seeing their recovery over time. This is a species that we were actively trying to eradicate, and even subsidizing that eradication through state funded programs, nationally funded programs, local, regional, county level programs, Livestock Association funded programs. Like everybody was out to get this species, they somehow miraculously survived in small numbers throughout the West. We managed to eradicate them in the East. And then when the world began to change, where we live, and that was really the institution of a new wildlife philosophy, a new conservation ethic. In the early 1900s we did a couple of things that were really important. One is we began to limit the hunting of game species like deer and elk, which are, of course, the critical resources that mountain lions and cougars depend upon as well. And so, in regulating hunting, meaning we were limiting the number of elk and deer that were killed, they began to rebound. And simultaneous with that, we were seeing a cultural evolution in just the American people, and that more and more people were recognizing that biodiversity was important to sort of healthy ecosystems, and that carnivores were even part of those important, healthy, biodiverse systems. And so there seemed to be, not seem to be. There was a conscious decision to begin to protect carnivores, as well as deer and elk, and at that time, many states limited the number of Cougars or mountain lions that could be killed. They even started offering them additional protections, like females accompanied by youngsters couldn't be killed and things like that. They basically became a species like a deer elk in the management system. So they had, there were rules about how you could kill a mountain lion or a cougar, and they were starting to be viewed as a natural resource rather than as a vermin.
MICHAEL DUNNE: So, Shea, talk about coexistence, but perhaps also conflict between cougars and livestock owners.
SHEANNA STEINGASS: Sure, yeah, I'd be happy too, agricultural coexistence with wildlife can be a loaded term. When I say coexistence, I think of acknowledging the fact that there that we do exist on the wildland urban interface, in many ways, in Benton County, and that wildlife is out there, some people kind of take an approach that coexistence means, you know, we have to embrace and love everything, and some people certainly do, and that's fine, but I think there's really practical approaches to coexistence that can benefit agriculture as well. So, we do have a fair population of Cougars here in Benton County, but what I would say is we also have a fair population of other predators. And the agriculture and wildlife protection program in Benton County is a government program that is funded by our general fund, and that money goes right back out to taxpayers, which makes it a very unique program. So, we recognize that there are possible wildlife interactions that can take place between livestock, poultry and crops with wildlife. And while there is that reactive approach and resource of trapping which is utilized, there are alternatives that can actually benefit wildlife farmers and their livestock. So, the ag and wildlife protection program was founded by local citizens in 2017 who had a concern that there was not an alternative for lethal removal of predators and. And what the AW, PP, as we call it, does, is it fills a gap. It is a program that gives up to $5,000 in grants to local farmers, and that is a farmer of any operation size and economic level to install proactive wildlife deterrence that are non-lethal. And overall, what I see a lot of are requests for animal housing and fencing, including electrified fencing, as well as deterrence. And the beautiful thing about that is, if you are building a fence to, for example, keep Cougars away from your livestock, not only are you protecting the livestock, and that's a better outcome because you're providing proper husbandry, but also you are preventing future predation events and conflicts, not only from cougars, but from the other predator species in the county, and that includes bobcats, coyotes, all kinds of Things. Raccoons are another one. So good husbandry can actually fix a lot of problems.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Okay. I mean, I'm wondering, with whatever way you can quantify, what are we talking about in terms of in your county, what do the numbers look like in terms of actual proven cases where a cougar took livestock? I just want people to understand how big or small of a problem it is.
SHEANNA STEINGASS: Yeah, that's a great question, and I can at least give you the numbers through my program. We do, we do quantify that, so everyone who applies or contacts me, I take note of that. And you know, I was actually looking through the data right before this interview. And something that did stick out to me was, while people did report conflicts with cougars, they actually there were very few cases of singular Cougar incidents. A lot of times farms experience other issues, including coyotes and bobcats along with the Cougars. So, I would say Cougars really in Benton County, I would, I would disperse the notion that they are a singular problem. I think the biggest issue is that we are directly adjacent to wildlife habitat, and we have a lot of amazing agriculture in Benton County, and I think that just naturally brews the potential for conflicts, and those conflicts aren't going to go away or lessen in the future unless we come up with some proactive solutions. So, I have been awarded over 47 grants, and half of those, over half of those, mentioned cougars, but they also mentioned other species of conflict.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Okay, let's do this Mark. I want to talk to you a little bit about, I don't know. We might call this reasonable versus unreasonable fear that people have about large predators such as the wolf, the cougar and bears, that sort of thing. And you talked about being in very close proximity to cougars and not being concerned. But I do want to give you the opportunity to talk about, you know, being Cougar aware.
MARK ELBROCH: Wonderful, good questions. I think you know, we can link this to your earlier question, to sort of mythology about the species as well. And so let's think, where does one begin? One of the myths is that mountain lions or cougars, they're going to sort of grow their populations forever, unless we control them. And I do want to say that that is an absolute myth. You know that, like many, many species, they're limited by the resources available to them, and so they also self-regulate at a certain level. And so you would never expect the Cougar population in Oregon to just grow forever. That's going to happen, and that might alleviate some of the fear that people can have in their head, and the assumption that we must do something to limit their numbers, to increase human safety. And that's more direct to your question. And so again, that is a myth. And there's, in fact, no evidence that at least sport hunting, as practiced today in the US, has any impact on human safety. It doesn't increase it. There's no evidence that it decreases it either at this point, it just doesn't do anything. So those two things shouldn't be linked together in most conversations. The other big fear that people have about mountain lions isn't directly about themselves, but it's about the things that they value. One is that they're going to eat all the deer or elk, and again, an absolute myth. You know, where is hunting thriving? In the West, everywhere, everywhere there are mountain lions, hunting is thriving. Surviving. We are so good at growing deer and elk that they are among the most abundant mammals in the world. You know, the white-tailed deer, in terms of biomass, is the number one most abundant species in the world. Mule deer is number five, elk is number seven in the world, even though they don't exist on most continents so that, like, we're really good at that, and even in the presence of wolves, grizzly bears, black bears, coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions, etc., we're still all able to go out and harvest a deer, elk, if we want to, if we have the skills. And it's more about the skills and the drive to do so. So that's a myth, that we should link those two things that we need to control cats to ensure that we can still hunt deer. It's just not true. There's no evidence to support that. The other thing I would emphasize is that we've learned how important cats are to sort of helping hold ecosystems together. And so with that in mind, we should start to consider them in a positive way. And the reason I bring that up is that that most folks who don't know about a species, and many people don't know anything about cougars, they don't think about them, they're just going about their daily lives, is that they have a gut reaction when they encounter one that isn't informed by what we know about the species, and that gut reaction can lead to sort of a negative perception, because they're scared, they're nervous. So what do you do when, when you encounter one? Again, as mentioned earlier, we talked about some of the natural cat behaviors that come out that really put terror in people that encounter them, one that they sit down and look at you, that they might not run. You know that these are actually just totally normal cat behaviors and are totally fine. What I tell folks when they encounter a cat is, if you feel the encounter has gone too long, generally, you can end it at any moment by just reminding it that you're a human, and that means clapping your hands, yelling, waving your arms, but being vocal. Because of their cautious nature, you can often put them off their game by being aggressive. So I tell folks, take two steps forward and clap. And I do. That's the way I've dealt with cats that are, you know, pushing me a little bit is I just clap and I just walk right at them, and they just generally turn and go. They also respond very well to physical contact, meaning that if you feel safe enough, you know you're far enough away, you don't feel like you can. You feel like you can bend down and grab a rock, a stick, you know you can grab your water bottle, take off a boot, whatever is going to reach for your cell phone and throw it at the cat. You know, it's close enough that you could hit it. That strike often really changes the mind of a cat. It doesn't have to be hard. It's just that physical contact really changes the mental capacity of the cat in the moment. Because cats really, they're curious, and they work on momentum when they encounter something novel in the landscape, they generally look at it. They're assessing whether it's a threat to them, whether they need to run, whether they can stalk away quietly and just escape without even really being noticed. They generally assume that they're invisible. They have a tremendous arrogance in their own sort of camouflage ability. And then if they do sort of act curiously with you, or, even worse, aggressive that you don't want to allow them momentum.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Okay, Shea, I'm going to go to you because kind of in a similar vein to the question I asked Mark, what would be your message to people who have livestock, and they may be concerned about a cougar or just in general, predators coming after their livelihood?
SHEANNA STEINGASS: Yeah, that's a really great question. And livestock losses do occur. I've lost livestock myself, and it, you know, it's two-fold. It is heartbreaking, and then you also have that kind of sense of failing as an animal keeper. You know, it's very tough. I've talked to a lot of folks whose grandkids and kids have lost animals, and it's emotional, and I can absolutely see how that sticks with you. That being said, the way that I think about this is there's three parties here, right? We have our livestock, we have our chickens or goats, we have ourselves, the humans, and then we have the wildlife. And really, out of that triangle, the only ones that can change their behavior are the humans, and we have that ability. So, to me, it is on us as animal keepers, as ranchers, as farmers, to do the best that we can operationally for our animals, and even something as simple as a livestock Guardian dog can completely change that predation dynamic. So, if people are experiencing predation or concerned about it. I absolutely would love to hear from folks that's part of my job is I will talk to people. I will go do farm visits and talk through things. But also, losing an animal is usually a sign that action is needed. And I have talked to people who have endured weeks and weeks of losing animals, and that can be interrupted. So, what I would say is, don't overly stress about these things, but be aware of your farm and its surroundings and potential predator havens or hiding spots. And, you know, use that human ingenuity. Sometimes things as simple as a radio, I actually have a radio that I put out sometimes, I usually do talk radio, just because it's the most talkative, so to say. And if there are Bobcats or Cougars in the neighborhood, I'll put that out. And I have, I have actually not lost one animal to a cougar. I would say, just be proactive. Be smart, be creative, and reach out to your local resources. OSU has a small farms program. The USDA has a lot of non-lethal resources now, and just started doing research and problem solving. And I think a lot of the really effective solutions that are out there maybe haven't even been discovered yet because they feel out of the box.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Shea Steingass, who is an Oregon State University professor and the program coordinator for the Benton County non-lethal deterrence grant program. And Mark Elbroch, he is the director of the Panthers Puma program. Thanks to you both for coming on and talking about this.
SHEANNA STEINGASS/MARK ELBROCH: Sure, our pleasure.
MICHAEL DUNNE: That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon On The Record are available as a podcast at KLCC.org. Tomorrow on the show, we talk with Dr Patrick Luedke of Lane County about the increasing role heat is playing in massive public health challenges. I'm Michael Dunne, and this has been Oregon On The Record from KLCC. Thanks for listening
