One year after wolf attack, dog fends off cougar at Carlton home
One year after wolf attack, dog fends off cougar at Carlton home
[Automatic response? track down and kill the predators.]
by admin on Mar 6, 2014
By Ann McCreary
It’s been a tough year for Shelby, a wolf-husky hybrid dog owned by John Stevie of Carlton. In March 2013 the dog was attacked by a gray wolf just outside her home, and early Monday morning (March 3) she was attacked again — this time by a cougar.
The unlucky dog has been lucky enough to survive both attacks.
Stevie had let Shelby out at about 4 a.m. Monday and soon heard the dog crying, said Sharon Willoya, Stevie’s girlfriend.
“We both raced to the door and she came running in. She wouldn’t let us touch her at first because she was frightened. We finally got her calm and noticed she was bleeding,” Willoya said Tuesday (March 4).
The 68-pound dog had cuts on her shoulder and chest, and required more than a dozen stitches, Willoya said.
Stevie reported the attack, and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) enforcement officers arrived with hounds a few hours after the attack. They tracked the cougar into a boulder field, but because it was a dangerous situation for the dogs, they left, said Capt. Chris Anderson, WDFW regional enforcement supervisor.
Wildlife officials returned Tuesday morning, found new tracks near Stevie’s home, tracked the cougar and treed it. The cougar, a healthy female, was shot and killed.
Willoya said wildlife officials found evidence that the cougar had “bedded down” not far from the house. “They think when Shelby came around the house, the cougar was there,” she said.
Stevie’s dog made news last year when she was attacked by a wolf on the deck of Stevie’s home at the foot of McClure Mountain. The dog received puncture wounds and lacerations to its head and neck in the attack.
Stevie subsequently took Shelby with him to Olympia, where Stevie testified before the Legislature in favor of a bill allowing citizens to shoot wolves that are attacking pets or livestock. Gray wolves are currently protected as an endangered species under federal and state law.
The cougar killed on Tuesday is the sixth cat shot by wildlife enforcement officers in the Methow Valley since December following attacks on domestic animals. At least four other dogs have been attacked, including a dog killed on Christmas day.
Cougars have also attacked cats, goats, sheep, chickens and calves.
Anderson said a hunter killed a cougar last week in the Pearrygin game management unit north of Winthrop. That brings the total number of cougars killed by hunters in the Methow Valley this winter to six.
Because of the high number of cougar incidents this winter, WDFW has issued special permits allowing hunters to use hounds to hunt cougars in the Methow Valley. Three permits have been issued for the Gardner game management unit, and two have been issued for the Pearrygin unit. Each permit allows one cougar to be killed.
So far, none of the special permit holders has taken a cougar, Anderson said.
“There are different theories bouncing around” about why the valley has seen so many cougar incidents, Anderson said.
“The general feeling is it’s probably because of the weird winter we’ve had,” Anderson said. “Normally we have cats that are visible because they follow the deer herds. Without snow the deer were really spread out and so the cats were spread out more, and that’s why people were seeing them in all parts of the valley.”
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Exposing the Big Game 
OMG! leaving their dog out in the cold tied up and now the poor cougar loses its’ life for their mistake and poor judgment ?..and they testify against gray wolves because of this mistaken premise that one can leave a dog out in freezing temps and think it is ok… and let’s make sure it is ok to kill a wolf ..this is BAITING!
They need some Humane Society education on how to treat a PET! Animal abuse agency needs to be called not scary Wildlife Services …where the motto is “death a phone call away if you are wild” …
What did they expect…? Bambi to come back from the dead and say “hey, wanna hang out”?
This situation should automatically require them to take pet care classes from their local shelter and volunteer.
Also, this sounds like “Chumming” the waters for fish…
Any testimony they give should be disqualified as they baited the area and basically trapped the wild being .., I was unaware that this behavior constitutes a killing by the Feds.
They are to blame but I guess most of the folk that call wildlife services are basically baiting for predators when they take no responsibility for their livestock
It’s like letting your child play kickball on a busy street and then they get killed… Kill the driver ?’
Use common sense that the country folk so proud of but forgot to use
Common Sense goes a long way to stop the killing of our wild friends!
The unlucky dog is not unlucky because of being attacked, but because of the luck of the draw owner she got. After the dog was attacked once, this idiot should have taken steps to be sure the dog was protected. Another instance of people being able to do whatever they want, regardless of how deficient they are.
Right, the guy clearly had an anti-wildlife attitude when he brought the dog to testify against wolves, then the game department kills a cougar just to appease him.
I don’t get it. The guy lives in an area where there are wolves and cougars and yet he leaves his dog outside and unattended? And the Cougar, who was probably hungry does what cougars do: Hunt so it can eat and maybe feed it’s cubs and these assclowns kill a perfectly healthy female cougar because she was doing what is in her instincts to do???
Seems to me, if I lived in an area where cougars and wolves traipsed through my yard, I’d keep my dog, cats and whatever else inside. Or, I’d build an enclosure so my dog would be safe. Better yet, how about take the dog out for a daily walk — I’m sure the fat ass owners could use the exercise. Everyday in my neighborhood I see people walking their dogs, every a.m. and p.m. on schedule. Their dogs are beautiful and healthy.
Why is it animals always have to pay with their lives for doing what is in their instincts to do: hunt and eat for survival.
You know what we need? We need Aliens to come down to this planet and kill all the hunters, poachers, ranchers, factory farm owners/employees, slaughterhouse owners/employees, puppy mills, vivisection labs et al.and only those of us who are kind to animals and vegan are allowed to inhabit this planet.
cre·pus·cu·lar krəˈpəskyələr/ Cats are that big word to the left. That means they eat meat when it’s daylight getting dark and when its night turning to daylight, and, as obligate carnivores, whenever meat is present and they want to eat. It also means that some people are too fucking stupid to protect their animals when the local newspaper has had several weeks of stories about cougars in the region nabbing pets. Where I live, very few people let pets roam at night because we have in the area: possums, raccoons, coyotes, bobcats, black bears, cougars, and most feared of all, cars and people. During the day we have raptors, and probably have them at night, too. Personally, I don’t wander at night because of the pterodactyls–they’re pretty scary.
We have to get pet predation off of the list of reasons to kill wildlife.