Old 12-01-12, 08:39 PM
  #22  
B. Carfree
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Location: Eugene, Oregon
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I lived in the coast range "forests" (not much natural forest left amongst the tree farms) in a yurt for eight years with my wife and son. We were definitely watched by at least one cougar, but we never saw him/her. We saw the scat and footprints. On one walk (we had a regular 14 mile loop along the ridge top and back to the river that we walked twice a week), we turned back for home after four miles. In the time we had strolled from the two mile point to where we turned around and got back to the two mile point, a cougar had killed a small elk. The kill was fresh and only partially eaten, but we still didn't see the cougar.

We still live close enough to the coast hills that we cycle through there regularly. I finally saw my first cougar last Spring. He/she had been killed by a motor vehicle along Upper Smith River Rd in the Oregon and California Railroad Lands. I'm sure the cougar was as surprised to find a motor vehicle there as I would have been. (I've gone as many as 135 miles at a stretch without seeing a car on those roads.)

Somewhere I have a video of the second cougar I have ever seen. My wife and I were coming off Roman Nose in those same O&C lands when one crossed the road in front of us. We happened to have our GoPro going at the time.

They are truly beautiful animals. While there is a slight risk of attack, it seems clear that cougars have much more to fear from humans than we do from them.
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