PORTLAND, Ore. – Cougar season is closed for the Oregon Coast Range and North Cascades, state officials said Tuesday. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said the area has reached its ...

But hunting groups, ranchers and Oregonians who live in cougar country say the Oregon’s cougar count severely underestimates the state’s actual population. Conservationists argue it’s too high.

This submitted photo from 2018 shows a cougar. Counties could opt out of Oregon’s ban on cougar hunting with dogs under a bill that proponents claim is needed to protect livestock and wildlife.

Cougar management was a hot topic in the 1990s, following the passage of Oregon Measure 18, which banned hunting cougars with hounds. Two years after the measure passed, another one was submitted ...

And then in 1994, Oregon voters outlawed hunting with dogs, making it much more difficult to hunt the animals. Now most are killed by hunters going after other game like deer or elk.

Cougars were once abundant in Oregon, but similar to other predators, such as wolves, that started to change with the arrival of settlers in the 1800s. Before Oregon was even an official state ...

Later last week, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife officials shot and killed a female cougar after hunting with hounds, and sent samples to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife laboratory in Ashland to ...

Scott Beckstead, Oregon director of the Humane Society of the United States, came armed with data from the state that show a steep decline in the number of cougar complaints, from a high of 1,072 ...

Voters didn't bar cougar and bear hunting, Beckstead noted. And they allowed the continued use of dogs to hunt problem or dangerous animals, he said. "These bills go far beyond that," Beckstead said.

SALEM -- Referring to cougar sightings near playgrounds, school bus stops and under a minivan, the Oregon House narrowly approved a bill Tuesday that would overturn a voter approved ban on hunting ...