A couple of weeks ago I noticed that one of our neighbors, Tim, had some sheep pasturing at his place. I didn't know what to make of it as he has had no animals until now. I mentioned it to Catherine as we went off to Eugene Tuesday, but I didn't see them. I figured the sheep make a good green lawn mower and provide fertilizer to boot.
Well Wednesday morning as we were having breakfast Tim knocks on the door and tells us that some animal had killed all three sheep and he thinks it's a cougar. He let us know that a friend may be coming by that day with his dogs to try to track the animal. One thing that was upsetting is that they weren't even his sheep, but belonged to a friend. I was skeptical that it was a cougar as they rarely kill more than one animal at a time.
No dogs came by, but the crows were activated.
I saw Tim the next day and he told me the dogs weren't able to get here and that the animal came back, ate more, and moved the carcasses. He was going to set up a camera and get photos when the animal came back.
We still don't know what animal did the killing. It has got me thinking about cougars and living with them.
As Tim said to me “we moved into their territory” and people around here are used to their being around and often talk about seeings signs of them, but rarely do see them. But sheep and cattle are a major part of the economy out here, although we are where it changes more to forest. Ranchers tend (at least as reported in the papers) not to tolerate losses of live stock. Interestingly farmers out here assume that there will be losses due to pests and weather. So the ranchers are more likely to want to kill wolves and cougars and this leads to deer over population and forest degradation.
There's a more immediate and visceral response to this sheep killing: danger lurks in these woods. As I have walked around these past days I am aware of a feeling of fear and also of a heightened awareness of what is around me. “Don't go day dreaming, you don't know what's there.” A quote from Aldo Leopold comes to mind “It must be a poor life that achieves freedom from fear.”
The workings of nature brought death to one of our chickens recently, now to a sheep. Am I immune? Being aware I think I'm pretty safe, but immune? No.
