That is a sad end for a magnificent creature.

Oh you have no idea! I was upset by it, and I'm not like a PETA person or anything. I mean, I wouldn't go out of my way to make a statement regarding animals and cruelty, but I hate seeing it. I wouldn't throw paint on someone's mink coat is what I'm saying. But I do love animals, especially the kind that are disappearing because I just think it's sad. And these are beautiful animals, cougars. If it had happened in a different way, I would have agreed with CPD doing what they did, but it could have been handled VERY differently. That was the true tragedy.

I'm not a PETA person either, but I wonder why they did not shoot sleeping darts at the cougar and take it to the nearest area where cougars live in the wild or to a zoo.

Sleeping darts is what I would have thought of as an appropriate solution, too. Did it kill livestock or something? Sometimes wildlife experts feel once a wild animal has killed domesticated animals that there is no way to prevent them from doing it all over again. I know they recently killed a cougar about forty miles from here for that reason. Dogs, cats and livestock are too easy prey for them and there is not much protection. Many of the sheep herds around here have Llamas as guard animals to protect them from attacks by coyotes and cougars.

That's just the thing, it hadn't hurt anybody or anything. Not even the children in the area where it was finally shot. The thing about it that is most upsetting is the cougar had been spotted in this particular neighborhood around 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning, yet the shooting didn't occur until 6:00 pm. That's a whole day that they could have called in Animal Control for some assistance with tranquilizers and could have avoided this altogether. They said the cops shot him because he charged them. Ok but only after they'd cornered it in an alley. Well fools what do you expect the thing's going to do?? Lie down?? There was also the issue that they shot off about 18 rounds of bullets..........in a RESIDENTIAL AREA. So to me the cops were the bigger threat than this cougar considering again, it hadn't gone near any pet, animal or child. I think that they could have either shot to wound it so it wouldn't charge them again OR they had had plenty of time to get Animal Control involved with tranquilizers. Or even one of the TWO zoos we have in the area. I don't know, I think the whole thing was handled poorly given the time frame from the siting to the shooting. It would have been different if it had just come out of nowhere and charged somebody - then I could be on the police's side in the shooting. But I'm sorry, I can't be in this case. I only hope that if this type of incident happens again, the police are better prepared.

Since that is the case, it does sound like it was handled badly. I know with he cougar they shot here, when it firt appeared in someone's backyard Animal control basically said just be careful and watch out for your small animals and hope that it would return to the mountains. Cougars, bears, elk and other wild animals are kind of to be expected to appear every now and then living this close to wilderness areas. It wasn't until the cougar started killing domestic animals that they took action out of fear that it would attack a child. Lately, Animal Control has been trying to capture a young bear in a park near Everett(I think).

Well we do have coyote issues - a lot in our neck of the woods. Hopefully other "country" cougars who were thinking of taking a trip to the big city think twice. :roll: :wink:

We had a big coyote kill a few chickens last summer and I slept right through all the squawking. The chickens have since been moved to a permanent and protected coop.

Yikes! Oh and coyotes sound horrible too. It's scary when you hear them crying out!