Olympic Peninsula Environmental News

Cougars are the perfect predator. They can weigh up to 230 pounds, 90% of which is pure muscle. They can leap nearly 18 feet up from a stand-still, and 45 feet horizontally. In 1936, John Huelsdonk, known as the Iron Man of the Hoh River on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, shot a cougar that measured 11 feet from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail. Cougars’ large padded paws allow this elusive cat to travel great distances in near silence and they’re absolute masters at blending in. 

Chances are, anyone who spends time in the woods in cougar country has been close to a cougar, whether they knew it or not. It can be a scary thought, especially combined with the lengthy history of recorded encounters that have occurred in North America in the last two hundred years or more. Many of these stories are recounted in Paula Wild’s The Cougar, which was recently nominated as a finalist in theForeword Reviews 2013 Book of the Year Awards, in the category of Nonfiction – Nature.

Her book includes tales of bounty hunters like Jay C. Bruce, California’s first state lion hunter, who killed nearly 700 cougars; stories like that of 12-year-old Walter Farnham, who chased a cougar up a tree to save his younger brother when they were attacked near Olympia; and surprising accounts of encounters occurring where you’d least expect it, such as a brightly lit and noisy dock full of workers at the Port of Kalama, WA.

However, as Wild writes in The Cougar, “co-existing with cougars isn’t about fear, it’s about knowledge.” Her book provides a skillful blend of natural history, scientific research and first-hand accounts, along with amazing photos and detailed information on what to do in the case of a cougar encounter. Throughout, she explores what makes this animal that both fascinates and frightens us so beautiful, so dangerous, and why cougars remain such an important and valuable part of our environment. 

Paula Wild is the author of several books, including One River, Two Cultures, The Comox Valley and Sointula: Island Utopia, winner of a B.C. Historical Federation Certificate of Merit. She saw her first live cougar in Washington state before she could walk, and now lives on Vancouver Island in Canada.

Co-existing with Cougars is open to the public with admission by donation (suggested donation: $5.00). For more information, contact the Jefferson County Historical Society at 360-385-1003.

Filed under: Puget Sound | Tagged: cougar, Puget Sound |