By Stephanie Keith

OLYMPIC PENINSULA WA (Reuters) – Howling hounds spotted a cougar and took researchers deeper into the forest. The steep hills were covered in cedars and ferns, and the snow was dripping off.

Lilu (a 82-pound (37.5-kg) female cougar), was chased by the dogs up a tree. After being pounded by a tranquilizer dart the groggy cat fell down and went to bed. They were able to change her collar and examine Lilu before injecting a drug that would wake her up.

The day was made possible by the Olympic Cougar Project. This partnership includes an alliance of Native American tribes, a world-renowned cougar expert and the Washington Department of Transportation.

It is possible to place highway crossings to allow wandering mountain lions (or pumas) to find new breeding areas. This will improve the environment. From Canada to Tierra del Fuego, the same cat roams across terrain.

Mark Elbroch is a world-renowned cougar expert with Panthera. Panthera is a conservation group for wildcats that’s part of the Olympic Cougar Project.

The carcass is not allowed to be eaten by the cougar if it kills large mammals like deer and elk. On the Olympic Peninsula, the predator of the highest order leaves behind food for cougars, golden eagles or bald eagles. It also feeds on ravens and other birds.

As bears do, cougars can take salmon from rivers and help to fertilize plants in the woods.

Lower Elwha Klallam Skokomish Makah and Quinault from the Olympic Peninsula have contributed their ancestral knowledge along with modern expertise by wildlife biologists.

Vanessa Castle (a Lower Elwha Klallam tribe member, who is involved in the project, said, “As indigenous people, we are taught we must walk in two universes. One of our traditional senses and one of today’s.” It changes how scientists view these animals, I think.

Scientists believe that big cats in Olympic Peninsula may have less genetic diversity than others because of the fact they live in a closed area, Interstate 5, and are cut off from the Cascade mountain ecosystem.

One part of the process of finding a place to build wildlife crossings – an activity used for habitat conservation – involves tracking the cougars using GPS collars, which provide valuable data. Lilu is one of the 60 collared Cougars found on this peninsula. It is difficult to determine the population total of these mysterious, widely-reaching animals.

Kim SagerFradkin (a Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe wildlife biologist) stated that the collaring piece provides us with information we couldn’t get any other way.

Each day around 100,000 vehicles travel I-5, preventing wildlife like cougars from getting across to the other side.

Glen Kalisz of Washington’s Department of Transportation said that it is “likely one of most harmful barriers to all species in the State.”

Southern California transit officials are set to open a wildlife crossing on U.S. Highway 101. The highway, which is currently used daily by 350,000 cars, crosses one of the most important areas of natural habitat remaining on either side of the road.

Like the Washington Project, it is aimed at increasing cougars’ genetic diversity.

California crossing and Washington I-5 are benefiting from one of largest such projects, along I-90 north, Washington. It is halfway done building 26 wildlife crossings on the highway, 15 miles (24 km).

For a related photo essay, see: https://reut.rs/3r19DBf