A female cougar looks out from her position in a tree after being treed by hounds near Taneum Creek west of Ellensburg. High school students, a biologist, a hound handler and a game warden are tracking cougars to see how they coexist with humans. This female was not tranquilized and collared because her position among the pine tree branches made it difficult to bring her down without harm.

Students study how cougars survive

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Originally published December 22, 2001

CLE ELUM -- Sixteen-year-old Rudi Christian gave a little scream as she saw the bloodied leg of a mule deer sticking through the snow.

She soon realized the importance of her find, however: The kill was fresh, and there was likely a cougar nearby.

That was good news for Christian and two other Cle Elum-Roslyn High School biology students tracking cougars to see how they coexist with humans.

The students, a biologist, a hound handler and a game warden headed into the hills of central Washington on Wednesday in a caravan of pickups and four-wheel-drive vehicles. They stopped now and then to watch elk and deer, and to examine animal tracks and other evidence of prime cougar habitat.

On the edge of a steep, snow-covered slope, Gary Koehler, the state Fish and Wildlife Department scientist in charge of the project, spied fresh four-toed paw prints. As he and houndsman Don Clark of Libby, Mont., took a closer look, Christian saw the deer carcass covered with branches and snow.

"We've got a kill," Koehler called out.

Excursions like this one began last week as a part of Cougars and Teaching, or Project CAT.

The idea is to find a dozen adult cougars, tranquilize them and fit them with $2,000 tracking collars. On Tuesday, students Torey Griswold and Kevin White and teacher Ryan Hill were with a group that managed to catch and tag one cougar -- the second caught since the project began last week.

Data collected every four hours by satellite will tell the students where the cougars are -- including how close they come to houses. The cougar population in the state has been estimated at 2,500 to 4,000, and they are believed to inhabit nearly all areas except cities and the wheat country in the eastern part of the state.

The eight-year project was the idea of the school district's superintendent, Evelyn Nelson. The wildlife department has dedicated $145,000 to it this year, aiming to get a better idea of how human settlement affects cougar behavior.

All students are taking part, with younger children studying the food chain and cougar habitat.

"That kind of learning can be much more exciting than opening a textbook," Nelson says.

Wednesday's expedition didn't lead to any cougar taggings. After Christian found the deer, the group saw two young cougars that had been treed by baying hounds. The kittens were too young to be part of the study.

Later, the students saw the mother, also in a tree. But this one was on a precarious slope, and Koehler and Clark feared that if shot with a tranquilizer, it might fall out and tumble down the hillside. They let it go.

Christian did saw off a piece of the deer's thigh bone to collect a sample of its marrow. Her class will study the marrow to determine the animal's health.

The students also removed the deer's jaw bone to learn its age and examined the way the cougar buried the kill in the snow.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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