Hunter kills cougar, rescues newborn kittens
Posted 5:26 p.m. yesterday
More on this
Baker City Herald
By JAYSON JACOBY, Baker City Herald
BAKER CITY, Ore. — The mistake was unavoidable, but Todd Callaway didn’t stop to worry about his reputation as a hunter whose integrity is beyond reproach.
He just wanted to save the three cougar kittens.
And he did.
Callaway, 64, is both a hunter and a retired wildlife biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (ODFW) Baker City office.
When he realized that the cougar he shot and killed on Thursday was a lactating female, he immediately started following the animal’s tracks in the snow, hoping to find its den and, possibly, kittens.
He found the den.
His flashlight beam showed three tiny kittens, each weighing about two pounds.
Callaway, who was hunting in the Lookout Mountain unit east of Baker City, called his former employer, ODFW.
The three kittens were taken to Baker City, where first a local veterinarian, and then Justin Primus, ODFW’s assistant district wildlife biologist, cared for them.
“(Primus) fed them every four hours,” said Brian Ratliff, the district wildlife biologist.
Ratliff estimates the kittens (also known as cubs) — two females and one male — are about two weeks old. Although their eyes were open, they were still covered with a film and the kittens were in effect blind, he said.
The kittens almost certainly would not have survived even one day without their mother, Ratliff said.
Cougars can have litters at any time of the year. Bearing young during winter can actually be advantageous for the cats, Ratliff said, because their main food source — deer — tend to be concentrated during winter, making it easier for the mother to find her own meals while nursing her kittens.
On Friday, Primus drove the three kittens to The Dalles, where he met another ODFW employee who transported the trio to the Oregon Zoo.
The kittens’ final home, though, will be the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, N.C., said Michelle Schireman, who has worked at the Oregon Zoo for 18 years and who also serves as the species coordinator for cougars for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
Schireman said she works closely with ODFW veterinarian Colin Gillin in cases when animals are orphaned.
Gillin called her on Thursday after learning that the kittens had been rescued in Baker City.
Schireman, through her work with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, said she’s also in touch with zoos across the country and knows which facilities are looking for particular species.
In the case of the North Carolina Zoo, it had two male cougars in its exhibit, both about 18 years old.
One of the cougars died recently, and the other is in poor health, Schireman said.
“I had been in touch with the zoo and they were willing to take as many as three cubs,” Schireman said.
“Whenever possible I try to keep siblings together.”
She said the three kittens are in good health, and she expects they will be flown to North Carolina within a month or so.
“We’ve been feeding them every four hours, and when I came in for the early morning feeding today they looked really good,” Schireman said Monday.
Callaway was not allowed to keep the adult cougar because state law prohibits hunters from killing a female cougar that is accompanied by kittens that still have spots.
An Oregon State Police officer warned Callaway but did not issue a citation.
Ratliff said that’s not surprising because Callaway’s mistake was not only inadvertent, but also basically impossible to avoid.
The reason, Ratliff said, is that because the kittens are so young they had never left the den, which means there were no small cat tracks in the snow to alert hunters to the presence of kittens.
As for the adult female, it’s impossible at a distance to distinguish between a male and a female cougar, much less to determine that a female is lactating, Ratliff said.
Callaway said the cougar was running when he shot it.
After shooting the adult cougar, Callaway “did everything perfectly,” Ratliff said. “He did more than a lot of hunters would have done.”
Schireman said that during her 18-year tenure at the Oregon Zoo she has helped place 105 orphaned cougar cubs, counting the three from Baker County.
A majority of those animals were rescued in a state other than Oregon, she said.
http://www.wral.com/hunter-kills-cougar-rescues-newborn-kittens/13299097/
Exposing the Big Game 
FUCKHEAD!
To make it short, this bastard killed a mother cougar, stole her pups thinking he may save them. Well, he didnt save them at all. A zoo is like a prison, but for animals.
stole her cubs not pups.
They lie…this could have been avoided.Stop hunting !!
I will never understand why someone would do this or receive any satisfaction or happiness from killing another being. And now 3 orphaned cubs must live out their lives in captivity.
What a disgusting creature – of course if he hadn’t shot the mother, the kittens would still have her. But, a human’s right to shoot wildlife and drive cars hurtling through space at 65+ mph trumps everything else, as we know. And I wish that the politicians and the press would stop insulting our intelligence –
The saddest thing is that there is no reason for killing her. Other than mankind’s right to go out and kill something. I just do not get it. So when a hunter kills an animal, he potentially kills/damages more than just one animal. Today, what might have been once been done for sustenance, today is reduced to the killing element only. How can anyone defend this activity? It’s shameful.
Heartbreaking on every level. I wonder if any sort of rehabbing of the little ones was even broached. STOP KILLING NOW.
Mankind has no RIGHT to kill–they just do it.
The mistake was unavoidable, of course it was avoidable. He didn’t have to shoot her. The only way this could possibly be redeemed is to reintroduce them into the wild again, not a zoo! It’s like humans are totally clueless and just blunder through the world, wreaking havoc wherever they go.
Callaway was not allowed to keep the adult cougar because state law prohibits hunters from killing a female cougar that is accompanied by kittens that still have spots.
I hope he got the right den and didn’t screw up even more animals’ lives. I’m sure a hunter, especially a former wildlife biologist, knows that any potential animals he shoots could be a female and a mother of cubs before he pulls the trigger. All of that comes in second to his right to kill something, I suppose. But there’s always the ‘taxidermy for educational purposes’ ruse that we keep hearing about. This story is just a little bit too neat and tidy to be true.
A former “Wildlife Biologist Hunter Kills Mother Cougar & Saves Cubs” is this for real? He is a “sport hunter” who murdered a mother Cougar! What was his true intention to save the cubs? My guess is, he saved them to ensure more future hunts for his fkn kind! but I’m glad they are going to end up in the zoo, its still better then them being out in the wild for sport hunters to kill off!
http://www.kgw.com/news/local/Oregon-Zoo-takes-in-orphaned-cougar-cubs-240308571.html
They are still calling this ‘hunter’s’ killing of the mother cougar a ‘mistake’ in the press. It’s just unreal. Putting these poor innocent animals in a zoo is like purgatory – so he’s basically harmed at least four animals. Our country just keeps dumbing down further and further.
Reblogged this on Wolf Is My Soul and commented:
I’m torn about this article since the man obvious was intent on hunting but at least he had the decency to look for and rescue the 3 pups in the den, I’m not happy about them having to spend the rest of their lives in a zoo either so it’s debateable if they can be deemed as rescued, Re-blogged on Wolf Is My Soul
The best that can be said is that this man tried to make the best of a bad situation. It is probably true that he did more that most would to make the situation right again, so I do appreciate that. But what bothers me is that our wildlife is under so much pressure in modern times.
Let’s just stop the hunting folks! and unfortunate situations like this don’t happen!
I suggest we who don’t hunt start asking very vocally for a non consumptives users fee fund to be implemented so the folks that just want to take pics and such and not kill anyone have a seat at the bargaining table with money to back up them up!
Money talks and the only talking is the hunters…we should be pushing for this fee and then the revenue we bring in by not killing gets noticed and we can pay to keep our wildlife alive, otherwise the killing cycle just continues until all the wildlife is gone…these hunters always saying they are paying for the wildlife to be alive is just utter nonsense ..time to call them on their game!
We want to pay too! to keep our friends ALIVE!
Your first line says it all.
Rebecca, this suggestion have been discussed many times on other blogs, and i hope this could be done soon, if not, hunters and trappers will always have the last word on every issues.
LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!
YES!!!!!!!!!
Rebecca’s 100% correct & this has been put forth for years & why does it never get to first base? As sure as shooting, excuse pun, it’s to keep state wildlife agencies, hunters & trappers having complete control over wildlife. Calling the present set-up ‘wildlife management’ is a ruse to keep the public thinking management is something other than a self-serving arrangement run by hunter-biologists & hunter politicians, for hunters & is already self-supporting, off the blood of wildlife. To start charging non-consumptive users a fee toward this so-called wildlife management (e.g. a tax on camping, photography equipment) or whatever, would just be opening a can worms for those who presently own (control) all wildlife and are in the killing business.
I can’t stand “hunters”! Not impressive at all…but, they ARE immoral,greedy,selfish,coldhearted killers!!! CAN”T believe “they” still exist in the 21-st Century and are LEGAL? Right…playing a “hero” he knew well enough had to “Save” the poor cubs so when they’ll grow up and back in the forest than,he can shoot them too…what a peace of work!? If he didn’t kill their mother they didn’t have to be saved in a first place. I wonder how he would like it if someone killed his mother and he as baby was send to lousy foster home with 20 other kids in it? Just like people, ANIMALS do need their own parents! Animals DO NOT belong to “hunters” or ANYONE! WE as the most powerful of all living beings have the responsibilities to protect and defend them form EVIL humans.
Nature didn’t give us the guns,fangs, claws, the kitchens, the fancy spices and sauces humans created only much later! Nor the power to chase after catch and kill animals, after to eat of it’s bloody still moving corps! How many normal people could do that? I can’t and don’t want to when there are plenty of other easy more pleasant,healthier things for us to eat.Than, it only makes sense that we are not to kill any living “bloody” being!!!
People capable of killing another being have very twisted(perverted) sense of logic in order to justify their gruesome actions. I want to see “hunters”facing someone their own caliber. The gun gives them sense of fake power,the actual killing- fake sense of “control”. And animals are easy, defenceless targets that can’t fight nor can give their killers what really deserve back. No special skills are required,no hard work,no creativity,no sweat, no thinking, no tactics, no diploma, no challenge of any kind to kill clueless,defenceless beings. How dumb this is???
From I-10? TEN!
I just realize that I have missed the part that the cubs will go to zoo. He could have cold-heartedly leave the cubs there to die but he didn’t…nice! In any event this “hunter” will continue killing…and is not excuse his legal killing addictions. We can’t afford any more hunters to thrive and kill what ever they want.
Reblogged this on Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting Blog.