The Skagit Cougar’s Poisoned Last Meal
A bold mountain lion terrorized a Sedro farmstead, but an ingenious local farmer ensured it was the predator’s final raid.
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.
Information reaches us from Sedro that on the evening of the second instant, a large cougar came onto the porch of Doctor Ever's house on the old Reed place, back of Sedro. It killed his dog which lay sleeping on the porch, carried it to the woods, where it devoured a portion of it and buried the remainder. The next day, Mr. Van Fleet resurrected the remains of the dog and after seasoning it with strychnine, buried it again. The cougar returned the second night and, making a meal of the poisoned carcass, was found dead the next morning. It measured nine feet from tip to tip. The following evening, another cougar made a raid on Mr. Wicker's pig pen and carried off one of his pigs. They were unable to secure the beast.
“The next day, Mr. Van Fleet resurrected the remains of the dog and after seasoning it with strychnine, buried it again.”
While Washington’s human-wildlife conflicts now focus more on habitat encroachment and urban sprawl, the 1886 report from the Skagit Valley highlights a recurring theme in the Pacific Northwest: the struggle of the early settler to protect their livelihood from the wilderness that surrounded them.
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