Cougar shot dead for apparently killing a hiker at national forest trail

Department of Fish and Wildlife search crew members have shot the cougar they suspect killed hiker Diana Bober on a Mt. Hood National Forest trail.

Related: Oregon’s First-Ever Fatal Cougar Attack In the Wild Kills Woman Hiking In Mt. Hood National Forest

According to a release from ODFW, first reported by the Oregonian, the adult female cat was caught on camera traversing the scene of Bober’s attack. Three hours later, trained hounds sniffed her out and drove her up a tree, where searchers shot her.

Brian Wolfer, ODFW’s watershed manager Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife search crew members yesterday shot the cougar they suspect killed hiker Diana Bober on a Mt. Hood National Forest trail.

Related: Oregon’s First-Ever Fatal Cougar Attack In the Wild Kills Woman Hiking In Mt. Hood National Forest

According to a release from ODFW, first reported by the Oregonian, the adult female cat was caught on camera traversing the scene of Bober’s attack. Three hours later, trained hounds sniffed her out and drove her up a tree, where searchers shot her.

Brian Wolfer, ODFW’s watershed manager and the person leading the cougar hunt, said in a press briefing this morning that there is still not confirmation that the cougar the agency shot is the one that killed Bober, but it is a strong possibility. and the person leading the cougar hunt, said in a press briefing this morning that there is still not confirmation that the cougar the agency shot is the one that killed Bober, but it is a strong possibility.

Diana Bober was often hauling up and down the trails twisting through the Oregon wilderness in Mount Hood National Forest, an area of skyscraping old growth trees, fresh air, Instagram-worthy vistas of snow-touched peaks. Her work as a counsellor allowed the 55-year-old to pack a couple of treks each week into her flexible schedule.

As her sister told the Oregonian, Bober had been an actress in New York City and Los Angeles, then a professional Texas hold ‘em player in Las Vegas.

“She was very independent and always felt very safe on the trails,” Alison Bober told the paper.

But after failing to hear from Bober for a few days, relatives reported her missing on Aug 29. Authorities located her 1996 Mazda Miata last Friday parked at the Zigzag Ranger Station at the Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness Area. Pushing into the Hunchback Trail, searchers discovered her body two miles from the station. Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts had announced Bober was likely killed by a wild cougar - an unlikely occurrence.

“From my understanding, this is the first attack by a cougar that took a life of an individual in Oregon,” Roberts told reporters at a news conference.

There are around 6,600 wild cougars roaming across Oregon, Wolfer said. They’re territorial animals, often hugging to the same 15 to 40 square miles of wilderness. Each year, the state fields around 400 reports of cougars attacking livestock.

But run-ins with humans are rare. KOMO reported the only other verified fatal cougar attack on a human in state history occurred in 2013. The incident involved an animal in captivity turning on a handler at a sanctuary. Bober’s death, if confirmed as a cougar attack, would be a first for the state.

“This is a very tragic event. It’s an unprecedented event,” Wolfer said. “We don’t have indication that things have changed and there’s an increased public threat from the average cougar. This cougar is one we want to be able to locate for public safety.”

The attack isn’t the first cougar-related death to grab headlines recently. As The Washington Post previously reported in May, two bicyclists outside of Seattle were stalked and attacked by a cougar. One of the riders, S.J. Brooks, was killed in the encounter.

Both Brooks and Bober’s deaths remain outliers. According to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, there have only been 125 reported cougaron-human attacks in North America over the last 100 years. Twenty-seven of the encounters were deadly.

– Agencies