Bowhunter reports cougar attack

                    By David Carkhuff of the Blue Mouintain Eagle
                   editor@bluemountaineagle.com
 

                    LA GRANDE - When wildlife biologist Leonard
                    Erickson answered the telephone on the Friday
                    before Labor Day weekend, he could not imagine
                    the story he would hear.

TW Hall's cougar photo is a hot link to a Canadian page about these cats.
 
 
 
 

                    Gary Chastain, a bowhunter from La Grande,
                    called claiming that a cougar had attacked him
                    and bitten him on the arm. The attack occurred on
                    the morning of Aug. 30, while Chastain was
                    hunting in or near the North Fork John Day
                    Wilderness; three hours later, at about 10 a.m.,
                    Chastain called Oregon Department of Fish and
                    Wildlife to report the incident.

                    Erickson, a district wildlife biologist based in La
                    Grande, said he launched ODFW's procedures
                    for dealing with a cougar attack on a human.
                    State law authorizes destruction of a cougar that
                    attacks a human.

                    Erickson was in an awkward situation, however,
                    because the Grande Ronde Watershed District,
                    which the Union County office oversees, does not
                    include the wilderness area. Also, Erickson said
                    the bowhunter declined to reveal a specific
                    location of the attack.

                    "He did not want a pack of dogs in there ruining
                    his or his party's hunting," Erickson explained.

                    Because Chastain had called him, however,
                    Erickson said he intended to deal with the
                    incident aggressively.

                    "I made it very clear to him, that one, he needed
                    that wound to be taken care of," and also that "we
                    weren't playing around with this," Erickson said.

                    Chastain told Erickson he wanted the incident
                    recorded but preferred that his hunting party,
                    which held cougar tags, would be allowed to
                    pursue the rogue cougar themselves.

                    Based on additional inquiries by both ODFW and
                    the Oregon State Police, the location of the
                    attack was narrowed to a remote location near
                    the county line shared by Grant, Umatilla and
                    Union counties.

                    "The best information I received is it was around
                    Trout Meadows Butte," Erickson said.

                    The bowhunter's report

                    At 7 a.m. that Friday morning, Chastain was
                    bowhunting on private land, wearing full
                    camouflage gear, when he sat down on a log to
                    look down on a meadow in or near the wilderness
                    area.

                    "He sensed something was wrong and turned
                    around to see a cougar rapidly approaching,"
                    Erickson recounted. "The animal jumped at him,
                    he squatted down and the cat went over him, not
                    making contact."

                    The cougar, a small one weighing about 75
                    pounds by Chastain's estimation, landed in some
                    brush. The cougar turned, and Chastain dropped
                    his bow to confront the predator.

                    "The cat jumped at him again, he threw up his
                    arms to defend himself, and the cat made contact
                    at that point in time," Erickson recounted.

                    Chastain told the biologist that he punched the
                    cougar in the head, knocking it away from him,
                    and yelled at the cat.

                    "The cat acted startled or surprised, got up and
                    ran off," Erickson concluded.

                    Wounded, Chastain returned to his camp.

                    "He explained to me that he had a puncture
                    wound in his right bicep with a bruise the size of a
                    silver dollar. Upon interviews with state police,
                    they confirmed that," Erickson said.

                    Difficult investigation

                    Chastain did not respond to a request for an
                    interview, but Erickson said the bowhunter gave a
                    consistent account of his encounter to ODFW
                    and OSP.

                    Chastain's stories matched, although it required
                    some prompting for the bowhunter to tell his story
                    to the police when interviewed by OSP on
                    Saturday morning. OSP officers, contacted by
                    Erickson, located the hunter walking down a
                    road. When the officers checked his license and
                    tags, Chastain did not volunteer the story of the
                    cougar attack but he did relate it after being
                    asked, according to Erickson. No holes were
                    found in his clothing, but Chastain showed his
                    wound (which he had treated with alcohol) and
                    pointed out on a map the general area of the
                    attack.

                    Meanwhile, Erickson had notified ODFW's
                    wildlife division in Portland and the U.S.
                    Department of Agriculture's APHIS Wildlife
                    Services, which notified its field agent in
                    Pendleton and placed the agent on standby for a
                    possible cougar hunt. However, with only a
                    general location identified, Erickson said the
                    prospect for a successful hunt became more and
                    more remote, especially once the three-day
                    weekend had elapsed without precise
                    information of where to start.

                    "We still did not have a specific location. We had
                    a circle on a map," Erickson noted. "With that
                    much time going by, the probability of locating a
                    specific cat in the John Day North Fork
                    Wilderness" was low.

                    "It was deemed that it was too late to take
                    action," he concluded. "It would be almost
                    impossible to locate the specific animal."

                    A rare incident

                    The North Fork John Day Wilderness actually falls
                    within the John Day Watershed District, based in
                    John Day. District wildlife biologist Ken
                    Rutherford said he has never documented an
                    actual attack by a cougar on a human in the
                    wilderness.

                    "That would be the first one I'm aware of," he
                    said.

                    Erickson agreed that he has not encountered an
                    actual cougar attack in his experience, either.

                    Cougars stake out territories, and a young
                    cougar might roam to find its own range.
                    Perhaps, this is the type of cougar that attacked
                    Chastain, biologists speculate.

                    "The cougar are out not just in the wilderness but
                    all over the national forest," Rutherford cautioned.
                    "When you're archery hunting, it doesn't hurt to
                    carry some pepper spray."

                    If confronted by a cougar, hunters and other
                    visitors to the forest need to make noise, do not
                    cower but stand up tall and remain facing the
                    animal, officials urge.

                    Recently, the Oregon Legislature passed a law
                    clarifying that humans can kill cougars if the
                    predators pose a threat to human life or safety.
                    Hunting of cougars by dogs was banned by
                    voters, but agencies still can use dogs to pursue
                    problem cougars.

© 2002 Blue Mouintain Eagle  Reprinted by permission.