The Terror of the Middle Valley
A massive cougar that plagued local settlers with livestock raids finally meets its end through a cunning trap.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A cougar had been making it unpleasant for the settlers of the Middle Valley. It had killed three fine sheep for Mr. Cook when Henry determined to put a stop to that kind of thing, so he poisoned the carcass of one of the dead sheep. The result was that on Friday he found Mr. Cougar dead. He was a monster, measuring eight feet two inches from tip to tip and standing two feet ten inches tall. He must have been a powerful brute, for he dragged one of the sheep up an almost perpendicular hill and through the brush almost 100 yards from where he had killed it.
“He was a monster and measured eight feet two inches from tip to tip and stood two feet ten inches tall.”
While Washington's landscape has been transformed by urban sprawl, the intersection of rural agriculture and apex predators remains a persistent tension in the state, echoing historical reports of settlers protecting their stock.
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