Fish & Game seeing unusual number of reported cougar sightings - East Idaho News
Outdoors

Fish & Game seeing unusual number of reported cougar sightings

  Published at  | Updated at

POCATELLO — We’ve all heard the tale of the boy who cried wolf.

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game has a bigger, more complex problem on its hands.

“We do receive mountain lion reports throughout the year in any given year, it’s just been a little bit elevated in recent weeks,” said Jennifer Jackson, a fish and game regional conservation educator for southeast Idaho.

A total of eight sightings have been reported to Fish and Game since the middle of May, and only one of them has been confirmed in the Pocatello/Chubbuck area. That came on red hill trail on May 11, the mountain lion was tranquilized and removed from the area.

But for the other seven sightings, Fish and Game has been working to get to the bottom of each one, with not much luck.

“We have put up drones, we’ve had on two different occasions hounds and mountain lions hunters to trying to track mountain lions in the area,” said Jackson.

The department has also used trail cameras on red hill trail and the only thing they have picked up is a coyote.

Fish and Game isn’t ruling any of these sightings out, but they are saying people may be hyper-cautious because of the fatal attack by a mountain lion in Washington.

For example, people have mistaken cougar tracks for tracks from a large dog. One of the reported sightings in Chubbuck ended up being a domestic cat on the roof of a house.

But Fish and Game officials don’t want people to hold back just because they’re unsure.

“Sometimes you don’t have an opportunity to stare at them for very long, so if you have concerns or you think you might see a mountain lion and are concerned about it, please give us a call. We do take those calls seriously,” said Jackson.

For more information on the incidents click here.

This article was originally published by KPVI. It is used here with permission.

SUBMIT A CORRECTION