Cougar attack on Washington girl indicative of growing population of the wild felines

A cougar attack on a young girl is the latest sighting of the wild felines that are a protected species in Washington state, according to Stevens County Wildlife Conflict Specialist Jeff Flood.

The child is lucky to be alive, he said.

“It was a bad deal,” Flood told The Center Square on Monday. “That cougar wasn’t playing around with her, he was trying to kill her.”

Flood is frequently called out to predator attacks in Northeastern Washington. His role is to assist the state Department of Fish and Wildlife with investigations and ensure livestock producers and domestic animal owners are represented.

The problem cougar was between one and two years of age, he said. The head was removed from the carcass and sent to a lab to be tested for rabies or another disease.

“It did not appear to be unhealthy, not in the bad shape you would expect in order for it to do something like that,” Flood said. “As far as we can tell, he was alone."

Three girls were playing hide-and-seek at a morning gathering of about 100 people with the Center of Life Slavic Church before one of them was attacked, according to Flood.

Flood said a situation involving so much noise and people should have made an attack unlikely.

When the two girls saw their friend in trouble, Flood said they ran screaming down the hill to attract attention. One man on an ATV roared to the site and scared the cougar away.

The cougar was killed by one of the armed men who responded to the alarm raised by two girls.

The victim had sustained very serious lacerations to the face, head and body, said Flood.

Cougars have been a protected species in Washington since 1968. WDFW now estimates their population at 2,000-2,500 and they mostly reside in forested areas.

Flood believes the population may be higher given the uptick in not only rural but urban sightings. He said since a 1996 voter initiative banned the use of hounds in cougar hunting, the population has steadily increased.

In March, WDFW reported a cougar sighting about 10 minutes from the site of the recent attack.

Flood said as the cougar population grows, there are more sightings of the big cat around habited areas. He said it is no longer unusual to get reports about cougars hanging out in yards or menacing a family dog.

He said people are allowed by law to kill a cougar that is threatening them or livestock.

WDFW’s “Dangerous Incident Reports” map shows a plethora of sightings of bear, wolves and cougar in many populated areas, he said.

“For WDFW to say that cougars don’t like to be around people is not reflected in that map,” said Flood, pointing out that cougars, also known as mountain lions, have even been found in Seattle and Olympia.