An increase in reported sightings of black bears and mountain lions this month on Corvallis area trails has people talking. The sightings in the Bald Hill to Fitton Green trails complex, and the Oregon State University research forests, have been from a distance. So far, no encounters as close as this one that a jogger experienced in 2019 have been reported in 2020, but any sighting of a large predator can instill both excitement and fear.
Access to nature and the ability to recreate in a beautiful forest is a big part of why we love living in Western Oregon and the Willamette Valley. Our quality of life is tied to the preservation of healthy wildlife habitat.
But no one wants to be confronted by a large predator on a trail, and these interactions often end in the animal’s destruction, as a precaution for public safety.
How do we balance our desire to live and recreate in wildlife habitat with the protection of these fascinating animals and their need for space?
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife estimates Oregon’s mountain lion population at 6600. Because this count includes kittens that often do not reach maturity, some feel that it may be an over-estimate. The highest densities of the big cats are in the Blue Mountains in northeastern Oregon and in the southwest Cascades, but with plentiful deer and forest habitat in the Willamette Valley, we have a healthy population here as well.
The Willamette Valley is also home to most Oregonians, with 70% of the state’s current population living here, and some projections showing an increase from 2.7 million to 3.9 million people by 2040.
With the population of the Willamette Valley projected to rise dramatically in the next two decades, our quality of life will depend even more on protecting land.
Protecting land is protecting more than just wildlife habitat.
Protecting land is protecting healthy rivers that provide drinking water and flood protection, healthy forests that store carbon and mitigate climate change, healthy soil on working farms and ranches, and access to the outdoors.
We can maintain what we love about living here and reduce conflicts with wildlife by protecting more land in the Willamette Valley.
For some people, seeing a black bear or mountain lion while on a trail is a once in a lifetime thrill. For others, it is frightening even from a safe distance.
With the number of people on popular trails, the possibility of even a distant sighting is remote. This study showed that the sound of human voices scared mountain lions so much they often abandoned a fresh kill. And that’s a problem for a species already squeezed by development and habitat loss.
There are many things you can do to keep yourself and the wildlife you encounter safe. This helpful brochure from ODFW lists the ways we can live and recreate in cougar country safely, and what to do if you find yourself face to face. Check out the Mountain Lion Foundation for a series of online webinars about living in lion country.
Based on recorded fatal attacks in the U.S. you are twice as likely to be attacked by a black bear than a mountain lion. Between 1900 and 2009 in North America there were 29 reported fatal mountain lion attacks, and 63 fatal black bear attacks. Most of the black bear attacks were by predatory male bears, not by a mother bear with cubs.
In 2010 alone, 33 people in the U.S. were killed by domestic dogs. You are far more likely to be attacked by your neighbor’s pet than by a black bear or mountain lion.
If you do encounter a black bear on a trail or near your home, there are many well-known strategies for staying safe.
One thing you may have heard is that you only have to be faster than someone else in your group. Not true of course, because you shouldn’t run.
And please, take the National Park Service’s advice – don’t push your friends down either!
I was asked recently why I, as the Executive Director of Greenbelt Land Trust, give to Greenbelt monthly and why Greenbelt is in my estate plans. Why donate to the non-profit for which I’ve been working for nearly a decade? In a word, passion. But there’s much more to it that makes a world of difference for our local Valley.
Here I am in my favorite ‘trust the land’ t-shirt and enjoying the wildflowers at the Little Willamette conservation area in Albany.
While walking on the Mulkey Ridge trail one sunny day this Fall when the air was cold and the golden brown and red maple and oak leaves covered the trail, I was thinking of a recent news report about the potential for life on Mars. These articles are now regular news features partly because of the explorations by NASA of the planet’s surface and partly because of our obsession with finding life on other planets. The article mentioned that the likelihood of life on the red planet got a little stronger with the hypothesis that salty waters near the surface may support some microbial life. Other news reports frequently mention the possibility of habitable exoplanets in our galaxy out of an estimate of 40 billion earth-sized planets.
The colorful foliage was spectacular this Fall at Bald Hill Farm. The Mulkey Ridge trail is my favorite and I love the stunning vistas.
While pondering the excitement of these reports, I reflected on our own planet. Last summer, we had a wonderful walk on Luckiamute Meadows with James Cassidy from Oregon State University who talked about the “World Beneath Our Feet” and the astonishing diversity and complexity of subsurface life. Apparently, when you place your feet on a square meter of soil you may be walking on 1 billion bacteria, 100 million protozoa, 5 million nematodes, 100 thousand mites, 50 thousand springtails, 10 thousand rotifers and a host of other creatures (perhaps even 100 slugs or so). Life abounds on the surface of Earth (and a little below the surface) in incalculable numbers. The latest guess is that Earth has about 8.7 million different life forms. For example, there are 950,000 species of insects and 369,000 species of known plants. There are even more than 3,500 species of mosquitos. How many species of mosquitos or insects or plants have been found on Mars or for that matter anywhere in our solar system, galaxy, or Universe aside from those on Earth?
Dr. James Cassidy of OSU brings to life the ‘World Beneath our Feet’ at a Greenbelt public nature walk at the Luckiamute Meadows conservation area in Kings Valley.
Our planet is extraordinarily unique! Life emerged on Earth about 3.7- 4 billion years ago and evolved in so many spectacularly astonishing ways that it is hard to consciously grasp the full scope of the history or understand the outcomes. So back to the question of why I give to Greenbelt? Every square inch of the Earth is precious. Our planet is the most wonderful world in the Universe and, in my humble opinion, Oregon and the Willamette Valley are some of the most wonderful places on earth. I give for every square inch of soil teeming with life and the large majestic old oaks with roots intertwined with this subsurface life that feeds its broad gnarled trunks and muscular branches. I give to see beautiful gray squirrels sitting on the oak branches eating acorns and red-tailed hawks perched in the upper reaches of the oak canopies waiting for a mouse or vole to appear in nearby meadows. I give for all the other life that nourishes our existence, gives us beauty and pleasure, and promises a thriving future for our children.
In our long wandering years we dreamed of returning not just to the US but to the Willamette Valley. Human salmon returning to the river that gave them life (I can’t say native river since I was born in a different watershed—along the banks of the Mississippi. . .). For years we told our kids stories about fixing up an old farmhouse in the valley, getting a dog, a chainsaw, and some chickens. Somehow it happened—we rebuilt a 19th century schoolhouse (built by a freed slave—no mere metaphor) not far from Corvallis, got the chickens and the chainsaws, and with the help of another GLT member turned part of our field into a seasonal wetland. The geese are already wheeling overhead, and in a few weeks teal, mallard, and wood ducks will arrive. This valley draws us all. Not that it’s perfect. We could do with some fireflies, for example. And more lightning, at least in the wet months when we wouldn’t have to worry about wildfires. And maybe snapping turtles.
The valley draws us and we change it. Where I grew up, change was slow—a new house or two every decade. The same creeks, the same hickory trees I grew up with still draw kids and quail. I walked to school past cypress my great grandfather planted, and my brother hunts morels in the bottom land under white pine we planted as kids. But here things are different—the valley nourishes change: housing developments sprout at every turn, fields yield pavement and parking. And this too is good and necessary, no doubt about it. We shop at a store where cedars grew alongside a creek fifteen years ago. Dozens of families live in houses on the slopes across our wetland where oaks stood when we built our chicken shed. You can actually see the urban growth boundary—it’s where the houses stop. And perhaps this is good and proper. But we must move wisely. All lands are not equal –we run the show, but we are not the only stakeholders. Those other citizens—finny, feathery, too small to see and all lacking voices—depend on us. The bird species alone has doubled on our place since we returned our field to wetland. Land responds generously to water and silence, and both nourish us. As Carl Sandburg said of his own Illinois countryside, walking out into the margins of the farms and field near his home in Galesburg — “This is a proud place to come to, on a winter morning, early in winter.” Whether our valley remains a proud place to come to is up to us.
– Seymour House, Greenbelt Land Trust Board
