On January 26, 2020, biologists with the Olympic Cougar Project slipped a collar around the thick, tawny neck of a tranquilized adolescent cougar in an evergreen forest outside of Shelton, Washington. M161 was about a year and a half old, roughly 100 pounds, and still traveling with his mother, who was also caught and collared. For the next four months, the scientists tracked mother and offspring as they rambled around the woods together. By May 2020, it was time for M161 to strike out on his own. As spring turned…
