Click on the link to read this story in today's Seattle Times. After several cougar sightings in Discovery Park (just a stone's throw from where I live), officials have shut down the park and have set up a trap (with elk liver and fish) to catch the animal.
Stories of wildlife interacting with human civilization are fascinating. I'll call it a contact zone in the tradition of Mary Louise Pratt. As we tread into their territory more and more, they're more likely to traipse into ours, targeting our cats and dogs as prey, diving into our Dumpsters for easy food. Last year, a bear swam across Puget Sound and wandered around the suburban neighborhoods of Seattle.
Unless human population levels taper off, we'll only see more of this. We're pushing the animals out.
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