May 31, 2008, Southern Oregon, according to ODFW statistics, is probably the area of Oregon with highest cougar populations per capita. Jeff, the father of these two girls, wrote me on June 1st, 2008, saying, "Yesterday, I killed a cougar in my driveway. My wife and several neighbors were having a yard sale. My wife let my girls ride their bicycles home to get a sack lunch and come back....[name] is 8 and [name] is 6. I have always been told I am overprotective, but when I heard the girls went home, I hurried off to check on them. Before I got 100 feet out the gate, I saw [the six year old] running frantically saying there is a mountain lion chasing [the 8 year old]. I went as fast as I could, hoping I would find [name] saying it ran off into the bushes, but as I approached I found a ghost-white 8 year old little girl staring at a cougar not 15 feet away. She was on the right side of the driveway and the cougar was 2-3 feet off the left side between two trees. I was riding one of the girls' little quads, and I pulled in between her and the cougar, [but] it did not even seem concerned. I asked [name] to stay behind me, and I let her go back up the hill to where the people were at the yard sale and told her to send Mom back with a gun. I stayed there about 5-10 minutes and the cat never turned or looked away until my wife came in the car, then she ran down the bank and went into a burrow where the creek carved under a tree stump. When another neighbor came, we walked around and scared it out and killed the cat. I was mostly concerned with the fact that it didn't seem to be frightened of humans. I am not small (6' 1" 275 pounds) and the cat was maybe 50 lbs (young female), according to "Jim Collum," Oregon State Trooper, who came out and picked up the dead cat."--Writing found at OregonPhotos.com
