OGDEN, Utah, April 10, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — State wildlife officials are advising residents to keep the family pets indoors overnight after confirming a cougar killing of a dog Sunday.
The pet was fatally attacked around 4 a.m. Sunday just north of the mouth of Ogden Canyon in the area of Maxfield Drive and 11th Street, said Mark Hadley, outreach manager with the Northern Region of the Division of Wildlife Resources. The area is above Harrison Boulevard, literally a block away from the mountainside, he said.
The attack comes after two sightings of cougars, also known as mountain lions, Hadley told Gephardt Daily, in the foothills above Ogden. One was reported Tuesday evening, April 4, around 40th Street and the other at 2 a.m. today, Monday, above 20th Street’s terminus.
In addition to herding pets inside overnight, the division advises keeping an eye on small children, he said, especially at dusk and dawn, low-light hours when cougars become active.
The DWR has set up a meat-baited cougar trap in the area where the dog was killed, Hadley said, as well as a camera.
While the division was able to confirm the dog was killed by a cougar with a single bite to the back of the neck, the demise of a deer, carcass found roughly two blocks north, was not as clear, even though deer are a major source of food for cougars.
But with the harsh winter forcing deer down from the mountains in search of forage, Hadley said, “just anticipate there might be cougars in the area.
“There are still a lot of deer around and the cougars follow them down from the hills.”
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