Book Review by Helen McGinnis (ECF volunteer)
The Beast in the Garden: A Modern Parable of Man and Nature.
By David Baron. 2004. W.W. Norton & Co., New York. 277 pp.

This is the story of cougars and people in Boulder, Colorado, and vicinity. It is an intelligent and sensitive work by a man who has reported on scientific and environmental issues for National Public Radio and written for Outside and the Boston Globe. Baron is a part-time resident of Boulder, whose residents are "green" and liberal.

The story starts on December 1987, when a cougar left its tracks in the snow on the flank of South Boulder Peak just southwest of Boulder. Cougars were a rarity then. As the years passed, cougars were seen more and more frequently. A few were seen at close range, ten feet away right on the deck, looking in through the sliding glass doors. Deer were killed, cached and consumed in back yards. Then dogs became prey. They were taken from their backyard pens or right off the deck while their owners
tried to drive the cougars away.

Much of the story is from the perspective of Michael Sanders, who was a wildlife biologist for the Boulder County Parks and Open Space Department. Previously, he had studied the interaction of radio-collared grizzly bears and people in Yellowstone National Park. The story of one grizzly forewarned him of what might happen in Boulder. This female, unlike all the others, was not at all worried about people and let them approach closely. Eventually, when no one was watching, this bear killed and partially
consumed a man who came too near.

On January 14, 1991, what Sanders feared actually happened. A cougar killed an 18-year-old jogger and cached and partially consumed him. The previous June, two cougars treed another jogger. One left three long scratches on her leg. They abandoned their apparent stalk when a deer appeared on a nearby hillside. And then in April 1998 another cougar attacked a hiker. He survived by gouging out one of its eyes with his thumb.

The author has a couple of major themes. One is the shifting attitudes between humans and cougars over the centuries, perhaps over the millennia. If Melanie Culver and her coworkers, who analyzed the DNA of cougars throughout their range in North, Central and South America are correct, cougars may have been exterminated from North America about 10,000 years ago during the time when most of our large mammals became extinct. Many scientists implicate the arrival of Native Americans.

The cougars did regain their lost range, and Native Americans preyed on them for their skins, meat and for prestige within their societies. The first white settlers came to Boulder in the 1850s. They embarked on a campaign of extermination against wolves, cougars and just about all other predators. The conflict was unequal. Between 1900 and 1950, 66,665 cougars were killed in the West. Cougars killed only 15 people between 1900 and 1999.

In the middle 1900s, public attitudes toward wolves and cougars changed. The irruption of deer numbers on the Kaibab Plateau in northern Arizona after cougars were removed in the 1920s was one factor. So were the publication of Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. In 1965, Colorado dropped its bounty on cougars. People began to assign rights to plants, animals and the entire natural world. Large segments of the American public no longer viewed wild animals as
exploitable resources. This new attitude put them in conflict with state wildlife agencies such as the Colorado Division of Wildlife, which caters to a decreasing number of hunters.

Another theme is the nature of wilderness. Baron maintains that true wilderness in North America is a myth. To be sure, natural areas are being protected and restored, but the results are something other than what the area was like a hundred years ago. Today "rebounding nature and civilization’s sprawl" are moving together. Where the two types of area meet, ecotones are created that attract animals such as deer. Deer in turn attract their predators. While true natural areas in the West are being
profoundly modified by invasive exotic plans and fire suppression—making them less desirable habitat for deer—Boulder residents have created a garden that’s excellent deer habitat. More than 1,000 mule deer live in Boulder.

One desirable effect of past human persecution of cougars and wolves is that they learned to avoid humans. This brutality was a kind of aversive conditioning. Large predators learned not to consider humans as prey. In Boulder, wildlife—all wildlife—was welcomed. The results of the lack of aversive conditioning could be seen in Boulder as the years advanced. At first, cougars were mainly seen at dawn, dusk and at night—the best times to avoid humans. Later they were seen in broad daylight. They were no longer were afraid of people and were seen frequently. Wild cougars prey on deer in remote
areas; Boulder cougars killed and consumed tame deer in backyards. Inevitably, cougars began to look upon dogs and cats as prey. Mothers with kittens were seen in the summer. The kittens were learning from their mothers not to fear people and to prey on pets. They were becoming habituated to people.

In January 1990 a professional cougar hunter was engaged to tree and kill a cougar which had killed a valuable red deer (an exotic species being farm-bred for meat). This same cougar was suspected of having killed several pet dogs. The hunt was successful; dog depredation stopped in the neighborhood. A public meeting was held. To the surprise of officials, most residents supported the continued existence of cougars. No one apparently wanted them eliminated, although pet owners who’d lost pets did want rogue cougars eliminated.

Again, after the death of the jogger, officials anticipated a call to "annihilate every lion in the state." It didn’t happen. People recognized that part the solution was modifying the behavior of the most pervasive species of all—themselves. Despite the best efforts of wildlife officials, residents remained opposed to deer hunting in Boulder and surrounding open space areas. Aversive conditioning was employed—such as the use of rubber bullets. Cougar-killed deer were removed from residences to encourage
cougars not to come back. Dog owners built cougar-proof pens. State wildlife officials did kill one dog-snatching cougar.

People remained pro-cougar. When a mother cougar was killed for depredation on chickens and geese, three of her four orphaned kittens were captured, reared on natural prey and released far from Boulder.

The author mentions that cougars appear to be returning to the East. Eventually attacks will occur on humans if this is the case.

Here is my perspective: I am distressed by the fear of cougars that is encouraged by media hype and expressed often on the New England Mountain Lion Discussion Board (former Rezendes site). It seems that many people who believe cougars occur in New England may feel unsafe, obligated to carry firearms when they go outside and to keep their children indoors. Most people in Boulder don’t think this way, although they are aware of the remote possibility of an attack.

Is it partly fear of the unknown? When I was interviewing people in the late 1970s and early 1980s about alleged cougar sightings, I got the impression that older people were afraid of bogey-cougars, not the real animals, because they had no real experience with them—only folklore. I used to do a lot of backpacking by myself. At night I was always fearful of bears, although I knew it was irrational. The sound of something breaking a branch nearby was enough to get me shaking with fear. But when I
actually encountered bears trying to get my food, I wasn’t particularly afraid and behaved appropriately.

If and when a person is killed by a cougar in the East, will the cry go up to get rid of every last one, or people decide it wasn’t as bad as they feared? Or if there is even the possibility that even one child might be killed sometime in the future, should all cougars be eliminated?