ZIGZAG, Ore. — The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife on Friday said it will no longer search for cougars in the Zigzag area of Mount Hood National Forest. The announcement came one week after wildlife officials shot to death a cougar believed to have killed a Gresham hiker.
ODFW said DNA tests could not confirm the cougar was responsible for 55-year-old Diana Bober’s death. However, the department said all available evidence shows wildlife officers killed the right cougar.
"It is highly probable that the cougar that killed Diana is the one that we killed last week,” said Derek Broman with ODFW.
Bober’s body was found on Sept. 10 off the Hunchback Trail in Welches. She was reported missing on Aug. 29.
On Sept. 14, wildlife officials shot and killed a female cougar near the area where Bober’s body was recovered. Officials said there was a “strong possibility” that the cougar attacked and killed Bober.
“Our highest priority was to capture the cougar responsible for the attack to protect public safety,” said Broman. “We continued to monitor the area for other cougars to increase the likelihood that we caught the right one while evidence was being examined.”
No other cougars have been seen on the 31 trail cameras in the area over the past week, ODFW said.
The female cougar was sent to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Wildlife Forensics Lab in Ashland for a forensic analysis. The analysis was challenging, officials said, due to contamination of evidence at the original attack site.
"Several days passed between when the fatal attack likely occurred and when Diana was discovered and evidence collected. Heavy rain did fall during that time period, further contaminating evidence," ODFW said in a news release.
“The evidence is too contaminated for us to ever be able to tie it to an individual cougar,” said lab director Ken Goddard.
The cougar tested negative for rabies.
The U.S. Forest Service will reopen the area closed during the cougar capture effort.