Cougar visiting Oregon hotel drugged, then killed

[jlw]

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/03/21/cougar-visiting-oregon-hotel-d.html

…

[GulliverFoyle]

WTF Oregon? You’re supposed to be one of our humane states!

[anotherone]

It’s sad but when a predator like a cougar has no fear of humans they are very dangerous.

[LDoBe]

You can’t relocate a big cat. It’ll come back. The best you can do is try to maintain its fear of humanity, and once that goes the merciful thing to do is kill it, because it’ll start teaching its cubs to look to humans for food.

A bullet from wildlife management is much better than getting the dogs set on it from a private citizen.

[GulliverFoyle]

There’s no where they could take it that it couldn’t reach a populated center and wouldn’t disrupt the ecosystem?

[anon30760835]

@jlw

But a cougar coming this far into downtown, into the business district and deep into a hotel complex…

Was the Navy in port?

[LDoBe]

If it’s not scared of humanity, then it’s really just too dangerous to let live.

There might be somewhere remote we can put it, but then we’d end up with a pile of relocated cougars that aren’t afraid of people.

[anon30760835]

@GulliverFoyle

There’s no where they could take it that it couldn’t reach a populated center and wouldn’t disrupt the ecosystem?

No.

Citation:

The Muppet Show. Rowlf the Dog - The Cat Came Back (ep.523)

[GulliverFoyle]

Well, I don’t want it attacking pets or small children. But I’m still not happy about this.

@LDoBe

There might be somewhere remote we can put it, but then we’d end up with a pile of relocated cougars that aren’t afraid of people.

It just seems like there should be a better solution than euthanasia. But maybe there really isn’t.

[orange]

We are NOT a suburb of Portland…90 miles up the Columbia River Gorge. The Dalles is pretty hard red, despite the increased tech presence (Google, coin miners, drones)

[svtimemachine]

The Dalles is not a suburb of Portland. It’s 90 miles away.

[Mister44]

“Cougar visiting Oregon hotel drugged, then killed”

I am a bit relieved this was a bout an animal.

[anon59592690]

I know, right? At first I was “OMG, Teri Hatcher!”

Now it’s all Sad Kitty instead.

[mikegrb]

I live in NJ but came to the coments to say this

[Lexicat]

The biologist interviewed gave some details not appearing above elsewhere: the population of OR cougars has bounced back to the point where relocating far from humanity risks putting it into another cougar’s territory with one or two violently dispatched cougars resulting.

I am a huge ailurophile. I got sad reading this story, but the euthanasia decision was motivated by compassion.

[RickMycroft]

@LDoBe

The best you can do is try to maintain its fear of humanity

Would planting TV sets in the wild, playing news channels 24/7 help?

[mr_raccoon]

They could have used wine coolers & Michael Bublé music to lure it out of there

[roomwithaview]

@jlw

A cougar (Puma Concolor) decided to go wandering about a hotel in The Dalles, Oregon.

It is cool to pump your own gas in some parts of Oregon now.

Obviously some natives who have never pumped their own gas before are a little confused by this new freedom and think they can do so everywhere.

[Lexicat]

Technologies I would like to see: uplift for macrofauna, so that they and we can dialog more explicitly and coexist in greater harmony. I think big cats and other animals in extremis often recognize that the hairless apes got skillz (and resources) that can help. Imagine if the cougar had been able to say “Hey! I am hungry, don’t want any trouble,” we’d be able to reply “Don’t start none, won’t be none! Have a chicken.” or “I hear thar’s deer in the hills out west, with no Tom cats around. Git!”

[loiteringfool]

To put it into perspective, saying The Dalles is a suburb of Portland is like saying that Sacramento is a suburb of San Francisco (distance-wise).