Horseback riders ‘stalked’ by cougar near La Pine
(Update: Adding video, more details, comments from COCC professor)
A Sunriver woman went horseback riding near La Pine on Sunday with her friends and their children when she said an unwelcome visitor started stalking them: a cougar.
About 45 minutes into their ride along the Ogden Group Camp trail, Tricia Ingram said her group spotted a cougar about 50 yards away.
As they continued toward the McKay Crossing Campground, Ingram said Monday, the cougar kept switching back along the trail in pursuit.
To avoid running into the cougar on their way back down the trail, Ingram and her group decided to ride down the Forest Service road. Ingram said the cougar crossed Paulina Creek at some point, because it followed them all the way back to the Ogden Group Camp.
“We saw the cougar sitting up beyond the bridge, up on the bridge, just watching, just waiting for its chance to have a snack, I guess. I don’t know, but it stayed over there,” Ingram said.
Ingram said they were in such a hurry to safely escape the area that they left the saddles on all four horses when loading them into the trailer.
Bret Michalski, a professor of forest resource technology at Central Oregon Community College, said a cougar’s primary prey are deer and elk, which might explain its stalking behavior in this situation.
“We don’t know how hungry it was,” Michalski said. “It probably was thinking, ‘These are potential food items,’ and then it saw them and said, ‘Wow, these are pretty big food items — I don’t know that I can actually take this.'”
Michalski said cougars are very territorial, which means younger ones have to search for unclaimed areas.
That might be what’s behind the recent spike in cougar sightings. More cougars are moving into town, as that’s the only available space.
Michalski also shed some light on the proper protocol to follow, if you see a cougar.
“I wouldn’t say chase after the cougar. But stomp your foot, make yourself look big and then back away slowly,” he said. “Never turn your back and run. Never, ever turn your back and run.”
