Hearing set on OR cougar bill

SALEM – Sen. Todd Nash (R-Wallowa) and Rep. Bobby Levy (R-Echo) are proposing
letting each county decide whether it will use dogs to hunt cougars. Hunting with hounds
was outlawed by a state ballot measure.

Nash, who introduced the bill before the session started, said mule deer numbers have
dwindled dramatically since the law against hunting with dogs for cougar and bear was
passed in 1994.

The Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Wildfires will meet at 1 p.m.
tomorrow (Tuesday) and at the same time Thursday. Senate Bil 769 is on the agenda
for both of those meetings.

The proposal is that each county would vote on whether it wants to be exempt from the statute banning the use of dogs. Nash said that he believes people in Multnomah County would probably vote against the exemption. However, he thinks people in rural areas who are seeing the cougar population swell and the mule deer population drop, should have the right to decide on how to control that imbalance.

For the bill to succeed, it would require a two-thirds majority in the Oregon Senate and
House of Representatives. This is its first step in that process.

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