cougars and lowland snows

General discussions on hiking in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest
querulous
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cougars and lowland snows

Post by querulous » January 15th, 2022, 10:37 am

I happened to be out at the coast near Cascade Head during the recent cold, snowy period, and managed to get in a walk on the south slope of Cascade Head. I was greatly impressed by the really large number of cougar tracks encountered. I found no tracks on the ~40 minutes worth of official trail walked, but in the remainder, glady-elky cross-country travel and the snow-covered seasonally closed road up top, wow, they were all over the place, Tracks coming, tracks going, tracks coming and going. It was enough to make me wish I had pepper spray, or at least a stick or ski pole to fend them off. The geographic dispersal of the tracks suggests at least three separate adults. One of those was certainly a female with cubs of this year or last.

What to make of this? I have been in that area in un-snowy weather quite a few times, and although I certainly noted the elk paths in the woods, I never gave a thought to cougars nor suspected their presence in significant numbers. One obvious interpretation is that cougars are always there, but just not noticed without the light cover of snow to provide an ideal tracking medium. They are remarkably good at staying out of sight. I imagine that my route choice, heavy on the elk paths and elk-maintained glades, put me in places that cougar are more likely to roam. The road up top was kind of a surprise, but of course roads are easy travel for large mammals, and if it's closed for half the year,there's plenty of time to develop a road travel habit. I think un-boxed humans are more of a big deal than humans safely enclosed in cars, so cougars might avoid official trails but not seasonally closed FS roads.

I don't know a whole lot about cougars, but have thought and read more deeply about bears. One of my conclusions regarding bears is that food sources are a really good lens to understand bear behavior: at any given period, most bears are where the food is. They are definitely not distributed evenly across the landscape. I suspect "food" is a good perspective to understand cougars as well. There are a lot of elk in those parts, so it's reasonable to speculate that the area can support a high cougar density. So if there are a lot of ungulates about, there are probably a lot of cougar as well.

I later did some web-surfing. ODFW (not a wholly reliable source, but worth listening to) states that cougar population density in the Northwest Region (including the northern coast range) is relatively low but "increasing".

Lowland snows can reveal things otherwise hidden. It's worth going outside even on lousy days. Something to keep in mind.

Aimless
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Re: cougars and lowland snows

Post by Aimless » January 15th, 2022, 11:12 am

You appear to have had a very fruitful and educational experience! :D I think every one of your musings about cougars & bears and their respective habits are quite sound. Plus, I find that seeing animal tracks in a thin snow cover is one of the more exciting kinds of outdoor experiences around. It reveals so many things that are normally hidden from our rather ineffectual eyes, ears and noses. Thanks for sharing.

johnspeth
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Re: cougars and lowland snows

Post by johnspeth » January 15th, 2022, 12:47 pm

Thanks for sharing your eye-opening observations. With all those tracks and nearby prey, I wonder how many cougar eyes were on you that day.

I've never seen a cougar in the wild. I've seen scat that could have come from cougar many times. I've read they are silent until they're ready to pounce. The more I hear about cougars, the more I want to look backwards to see if one is behind me.

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retired jerry
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Re: cougars and lowland snows

Post by retired jerry » January 15th, 2022, 2:12 pm

I've never seen cougars but their tracks are common. Especially if there's snow on the ground.

Once I went out one day, then, the next day saw cougar tracks on mine

I think they're fairly common but prefer watching us but not letting us see them.

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aiwetir
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Re: cougars and lowland snows

Post by aiwetir » January 15th, 2022, 11:39 pm

No one's gonna say anything about Cascade Head being closed?
- Michael

greenjello85
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Re: cougars and lowland snows

Post by greenjello85 » January 16th, 2022, 12:31 am

querulous wrote:
January 15th, 2022, 10:37 am
One obvious interpretation is that cougars are always there, but just not noticed without the light cover of snow to provide an ideal tracking medium. They are remarkably good at staying out of sight.
Yeah they are all over. Human's are dangerous. A hidden cougar is a safe cougar.

I've seen 3 in the blue mountains but only 1 darting across a road in western oregon even though the vast majority of my outdoor time is in the west half of the state. Probably mostly due to terrain. They are quite numerous in the mountains between Pendleton and La Grande.

querulous
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Re: cougars and lowland snows

Post by querulous » January 16th, 2022, 11:46 am

aiwetir wrote:
January 15th, 2022, 11:39 pm
No one's gonna say anything about Cascade Head being closed?
Actually Cascade Head doesn't officially close to entry until the first of the year; I was there just after Christmas. But this year the ridgeline road closed early because of a landslide near hwy 101. Not an impediment to walking, though.

querulous
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Re: cougars and lowland snows

Post by querulous » January 16th, 2022, 12:28 pm

greenjello85 wrote:
January 16th, 2022, 12:31 am
I've seen 3 in the blue mountains but only 1 darting across a road in western oregon even though the vast majority of my outdoor time is in the west half of the state. Probably mostly due to terrain. They are quite numerous in the mountains between Pendleton and La Grande.

Personal cougar sightings, over thirty years' residence in western North America:

-A couple glimpsed in car headlights crossing a forest service road at night, in central Idaho and eastern Washington respectively. Quick enough that I was left to wonder, "did I really see that?"

-One walking a closed forest road in the Puget lowlands E of Seattle. A mother and two cubs. She was looking at me when I noticed her, maybe fifty yards away. After what seemed like a long time, I broke the "Mexican standoff" by taking a couple of steps forward, at which point she took off into the adjacent brush, calling the cubs after her. I proceeded forward, skittishly looking behind me every few steps. I had been "trail running", but did not resume running until maybe a half-mile away.

-One on a remote desert summit in the chaparral zone in Baja California. I conjecture the cat was looking at the view and so did not sense my approach over stable talus until I was pretty close. It bounded off as soon as it noticed me.

-One camping at night in an equally remote dry arroyo in Baja California. I was reading by headlamp atop a large boulder in the wash, and noticed a couple of anomalous points of light. I stood up to get a better view, and there was the cat crouching not fifteen feet away. I shouted and tried to act fierce; the cat retreated. I should note I had not the slightest impulse to run away; there wasn't anyplace to run to, and the cat could have been on me in a twinkling. I had one last glimpse of two points of light a few yards down the arroyo, and that was that. I lit a palm-frond fire and stayed awake until late, too scared to sleep. I finally dozed off, and awoke next morning, still alive, by the ashes of the fire.
When I related this story to my sister, a cat owner, she laughed and told me the cougar was probably just curious. Maybe so, but it was a deeply scary incident, being alone in the dark a long, long way from another human being.

Not a lot of contact, really, for the years I've been out there. Compare that to bear sightings, gotta be in the hundreds.

There seem to be a lot of cougars in inland Baja California; not expected, perhaps, but I hear chaparral country in "upper" California is also well-stocked with cougars. My take, consistent with your sightings, is west-side sightings in both WA and OR are relatively scarce vis-a-vis east side. Maybe not such good habitat for them, maybe better cover, maybe a bit of both. No rattlesnakes over here either; lucky us.


querulous
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Re: cougars and lowland snows

Post by querulous » January 16th, 2022, 1:47 pm

aiwetir wrote:
January 16th, 2022, 1:08 pm
https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involv ... cade-head/

PNG image.png
You need to distinguish between the Nature Conservancy's Cascade Head Preserve (largely just the biggest unforested headland) and the federally owned USFS-managed Cascade Head Scenic Area which is everything else, far larger, including e.g. all the forested land N to Neskowin and E to the highway, the Harts Cove trail, the N-S trail paralleling 101, plus some lands E of 101, most of the Salmon estuary, and some lands S of the Salmon. The S-side Cascade Head trail starts on federal land, does a little stint on a private land strip, and enters NC's cascade head preserve fairly close to the big headland meadow. The two ownerships have different management regimes. Generally on the NC's cascade head you're supposed to stick to the one trail. The federal lands (at least the Research Natural Area, which the Harts Cove trail enters) are closed usually from I think January 1 to June 1 for wildlife habitat (murrelet, I suspect) reasons, enforced by a gate on the main road; but otherwise you can go anywhere. For my money the federal stuff is where it's worth spending most time. The NC's cascade head preserve offers big scenic payoff for little effort and is heavily, heavily used. Good for a first visit, or an occasional revisit. The federal lands by contrast are relatively uncrowded and fine roaming country.
NC's covid restrictions have been off and on. I guess they are on again at the moment.

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