Oregon wildlife officials said they had no choice but to kill a cougar captured in a Portland backyard, a decision that did not sit well with some animal lovers.
Officials from the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife said the cougar was euthanized Friday for public safety reasons because the cat had become used to the city and had lost its fear of people.
But The Oregonian reported that at least on social media some people were wondering why the cougar couldn’t be saved.
The newspaper quoted Portland resident Amy Lestat as saying on its Facebook page: “The public wants to know why this animal could not be placed in a sanctuary or zoo. It seems as if with the short notice and due to the holiday, officials didn’t want to deal with the inconvenience.”
Residents called police to report the cougar sitting in a tree in a densely populated Portland neighborhood. After three hours, wildlife officials tranquilized the animal with a dart and removed it from the tree.
The cougar was placed in a cage and euthanized a while later.
The hunt for British Big Cats attracts far more newspaper column-inches than any other cryptozoological subject. There are so many of them now that we feel that they should be archived by us in some way, so we should have a go at publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in. Curated by Carl Marshall and Olivia McCarthy
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