May Musings
by Pete Helzer

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I was driving home from Portland last month while listening to OPB on the radio. Rep Jeff Kropf of Sublimity was giving a fiery speech in the Oregon House on the imminent threat of cougars. The images he employed were of cougars killing our children. He was arguing that his bill would remedy the problem by allowing hunters to use dogs to track and tree cougars. He found enough votes to pass his bill and send it on to the Oregon Senate.

It was a riveting speech and I drove home gripping the wheel and keeping a sharp eye out for cougars. As a rural resident, and a concerned father of an 11 year old daughter, I decided to assess the actual risk of a cougar attack. Here is what I found: There were no human deaths from cougar attacks last year in the United States. There were no cougar attacks. Five million people were bitten by dogs, however, requiring 333,687 trips to hospital emergency rooms with 15 reported fatalities. Snake bites killed 15 people (mostly careless snake handlers), bee stings killed 120, fire ant stings killed 32, and lightening strikes killed 82.

In Oregon approximately 450 people die each year as a result of gunshot wounds, and nationally, there were 17,970 people killed by drunk drivers. Does Rep Jeff Kropf have his priorities straight? Perhaps we could use our hunting dogs to sniff out those pesky fire ants.

Pete Helzer

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