That same night, Kay's neighbor's dog was attacked. The cougar had the dog by the neck, Fairchild said, and was so engrossed in the attack that her husband was not able to scare it off. He was looking for his shotgun when the dog managed to escape and the cougar ran off, Fairchild said, adding that the dog suffered about 40 puncture wounds and a severed nerve but is now doing fine. On Thursday afternoon, Hailey police officer Jeff Frost chased a large male cougar back into the hills after a family reported seeing it by the river north of Hailey where they were fishing, Frost said. Last year, regional wildlife biologist Bruce Palmer explained that Wood River Valley residents historically have not approved of killing mountain lions, particularly in close proximity to the human-populated valley floor.
Mountain lions come with the territory.
Not everyone is so nonchalant. Maurice Hornocker is a wildlife biologist who has been researching lions and tigers since the mid 1960s. In a telephone interview from his home in Hailey, he said that lions and people don't mix. Eventually, he added, someone's kid could be attacked. Hornocker said that opening the area to hunting could make more room for healthy mountain lions, but that it would be better to have a selective hunting program to cull the weaker lions that are coming into neighborhoods.