Greenpeace

Predators return - hungry

By Colin Nickerson, Globe Staff, 1/29/2002

BANFF, Alberta - It was no accidental encounter. The cougar that killed Frances Frost stalked her with cunning and stealth.

The big cat concealed itself behind a juniper bush by a popular cross-country ski trail, then - after Frost whooshed by - bounded in silent pursuit of the 30-year-old outdoorswoman, zigzagging for 144 feet before making the final pounce.

Frost was probably unaware of the cougar's presence until the instant the 132-pound feline sprang onto her back and snapped her spine, much as it would that of an unlucky elk calf.

The deadly contact occurred last January, and the most shocking aspect was that none of the conventional wisdom about wild animal attacks applied - the cougar was not sick, not cornered, not defending cubs.

Just hunting.

As big carnivores make a dramatic comeback in North America, protected as magnificent symbols of the wild and, controversially, even transplanted back to former ranges by environmental programs, clashes between humans and the continent's most fearsome predators - cougars, bears, wolves, and alligators - are rising sharply. The last decade saw more wild animal attacks on humans than ever recorded.

The figures tracked by wildlife biologists show that of 142 documented deaths by bear or cougar attack during the last 100 years, for example, nearly half took place in the last decade alone.

''There seems a real increase in the frequency of conflict as big carnivores start to reoccupy areas from which they have been absent for some time,'' said Paul C. Paquet, a Saskatchewan-based wildlife consultant for the World Wildlife Fund and one of Canada's foremost authorities on wolves.

But don't blame the beasts. Wildlife specialists say the overriding reason for the rise in clashes between people and predators is the fast-escalating human intrusion into wild country.

More hikers are taking to the high trails; more land is going under the plow or pavement spreader; more sprawling ranches are being subdivided into 10- or 20-acre rural retreats that give well-heeled nature lovers plenty of breathing room but put the squeeze on critters requiring real space.

''There's a definite upward trend [in attacks] that's dramatic in some places,'' said Stephen Herrero, professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Calgary and an expert on black bears and grizzlies. ''In British Columbia, there has been a doubling of bear attacks from the previous decade.''

In the past two decades, populations of large carnivores have grown significantly and they are reentering territory they haven't inhabited since the 19th century. Most wildlife authorities believe the expansion is a good thing, overall, for biological diversity.

But they warn that humans are going to have to make serious adaptations as more carnivores compete for food in regions also being taken over by housing developments, expanded farming operations, and outdoor recreational areas.

Banff offers a classic case.

The winter sports mecca, population 9,000, lies within Banff National Park, with more than 2,000 square miles of pristine wilderness all around. But only about 3 percent of that space is valley land that can support elk as well as the cougars and wolves that prey upon the hoofed herds.

Of course, that same valley land within the park and in the vast but fast-developing regions all around is also where the highways run, electric lines are built, new housing tracts are raised, and ranches are chopped into ''ranchlets'' for moneyed urbanites who want to enjoy the big outdoors.

''The best land for humans is also the best land for elk herds, wolf packs, cougars, and other wildlife,'' said Marjorie Huculak, spokeswoman for Banff National Park. ''And the results can be tragic all around.''

Frost was the first human known to be killed by a cougar in Alberta's history. But the attack was also a sign of the times - a warning for the entire continent.

In Florida, alligators once hunted to the edge of extinction are today protected by environmental rules, their numbers multiplying almost as rapidly as the tract houses on the edges of their steamy habitats. The big reptiles are routinely seen slithering across golf courses or swimming leisurely along suburban canals.

Since Florida started keeping records in 1948, there have been 287 serious alligator attacks on humans, with 10 people killed. Of those attacks, 172 - nearly two-thirds - occurred from 1990 to 2001.

''The population of people is getting bigger and so is the population of alligators,'' said Mark Trainor, spokesman for the state's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. ''So you get more unhappy incidents.''

Indeed, as humans and dangerous beasts increasingly cross paths, the outcome is often frightening. British Columbia's Vancouver Island is one of the fastest developing regions in North America. It also boasts the heaviest concentration of cougars, with roughly 1,000 of the graceful, powerful cats inhabiting the Northwestern rain forest.

Jon Nostdal, a 52-year-old tugboat captain from Seattle, was bicycling near the lumber town of Port Alice last February when a cougar sprang from hiding, knocking him to the ground. Man and creature rolled across the roadway in a writhing tangle of limbs and claws. ''We spent a fair bit of time literally cheek to cheek,'' Nostdal said.

Finally a passerby, millworker Eliott Cole, drove off the cat after repeatedly slamming it across the back with Nostdal's bicycle.

In Canada's Labrador region, schools in Nain had to be closed for three days last fall as wild wolves roved through the town, attacking dogs and menacing humans.

Unlike cougars and bears, wolves almost never harm people. But packs have become an unnerving presence in parts of the Canadian west, roaming over the Banff Springs golf course and trotting into town for the occasional snack.

''They will look for simple things like dog food, bird suet, or garbage,'' said wildlife biologist Paquet. ''But dogs and cats can also become wolf food. They will snap up Fido or Fluffy.''

Wildlife specialists say that the scarcity of large predators during most of the 20th century gave humans unrealistic and even romantic views of beasts that can be unpredictable and highly dangerous.

''People who think they love wildlife have somehow got it in their heads that wild creatures reciprocate the emotion,'' said British Columbia warden-naturalist Janet Lundren. ''One very simple reason we're seeing more grizzly attacks on humans is that humans in unprecedented numbers are wandering into dangerous bear country in search of wilderness adventure. A very few will get a deadly lesson in the definition of `large carnivore.'

''Griz don't care how much you gave to Greenpeace,'' she said.

From the 1800s until the 1970s, cougars and wolves were regarded as vermin and shot on sight. Especially in the United States, the cat and canine species were virtually wiped out, clinging to a few remote regions where humans seldom ventured.

With predators scarce, humans adopted truisms that weren't so true - especially the notion that wild beasts never attack people unless the animal is too feeble to hunt or guarding its young.

Then came recognition that predators occupied a crucial niche in the ecosystem, and the animals were championed by environmentalists and eventually protected by federal, state, and provincial regulations (a trend more true in the United States than in Canada).

''As cougars complete their recolonization of an increasingly crowded West and slowly begin migrating eastward, the comforting old truism - that they are harmless and avoid people at all costs - is giving way to a new picture,'' note naturalists Jo Deurbrouck and Dean Miller in their recently published book, ''Cat Attacks: True Stories and Hard Lessons from Cougar Country.''

This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 1/29/2002.