BEND — Bend police on Wednesday, Oct. 26, shot and killed a cougar roaming a neighborhood in northwest Bend.

The cougar was spotted multiple times during the day. The first call came at 10:17 a.m. when Bend police officers responded to a cougar sighting in the area of Northwest Third Street and Portland Avenue. After investigating the area, officers located a deer kill site in the backyard of a home and warned neighbors of the incident.

At 8:20 that night, police responded to a second cougar sighting in the area. The caller stated they were driving and nearly hit the cougar as it was crossing Northwest Saginaw Avenue. The emergency dispatch center received another call from a nearby area.

Police noted the cougar was in a heavily populated area where people were walking their dogs. Officers located the cougar in the 500 block of Northwest Roanoke Avenue.

“The cougar was exhibiting behaviors consistent with being a public safety risk, including showing no fear of humans in extremely close proximity, hunting in a heavily populated area, and returning to the kill site,” according to the police report.

Upon the advice of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Bend police set up a containment area and shot and killed the animal. ODFW then took possession of the carcass.

This is the fifth time police this year killed a cougar after they being spotted in residential areas in Deschutes County. An Oregon State Police trooper shot and killed a cougar that was acting aggressively toward two people in Bend’s Deschutes River Woods neighborhood in July. Police shot and killed three cougars during one weekend in August after residents reported the animals near their homes in Bend and Sisters and authorities deemed them dangerous to the community.

Deschutes County has experienced an increase in cougar sightings compared to 2021. As of September, there were 20 reports of cougars in the county, compared to 14 during the same time period a year ago.

Bend has experienced an increasing number of cougar sightings in recent years, particularly as the city grows and the human population pushes further into wilderness areas.

Oregon is home to more than 6,000 cougars, according to ODFW, a significant jump from the late 1960s, when the cougar population fell to around 200 individual animals.

The public is advised to follow ODFW guidelines when encountering a cougar. These include not turning one’s back to the animal, appearing large, not running away and fighting back if attacked.