BAKER CITY — Brian Ratliff and Justin Primus are trudging through ankle-deep snow in Baker City’s Mount Hope Cemetery, tracking a mystery.

Well, a partial mystery.

The two wildlife biologists were in the cemetery, at the southeast side of the city between South Bridge Street and Interstate 84, around 9 a.m. on Feb. 6 because several hours earlier a Baker City Police officer, Mason Powell, shot and killed a 6-month-old female cougar in the cemetery.

Powell brought the carcass, which weighed 43 pounds, to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife office in Baker City.

Ratliff is the district wildlife biologist, and Primus the assistant biologist.

The pair followed cougar tracks through parts of the cemetery and onto the sagebrush hill to the northeast, which is bisected by the Smith Ditch.

After about an hour of tracking, Ratliff and Primus concluded that all the tracks were made by the cougar that Powell shot.

The tracks were of the right size for the juvenile cougar, Ratliff said.

Although the biologists hadn’t had a chance to talk with Powell, whose shift ended at 7 a.m., they found a trail where the officer apparently had dragged the cougar from just above the Smith Ditch, several hundred yards northeast of the cemetery boundary fence, down the hill to the cemetery.

They also found small blood spots beside a line of tracks in the cemetery, and a place where, based on the length of the stride, it appeared that the cougar started running.

That might be the place where Powell shot the cougar.

The area is near the sexton’s house at the north edge of the cemetery.

Ratliff said it appeared that the wounded cougar went up the hill and died there.

He said the wound from the officer’s AR-15 rifle mainly bled internally, so it wasn’t surprising that there wasn’t a lot of blood along the line of tracks.

Ratliff said that based on the tracks, it appeared the cougar, traveling alone, walked down the hill, from the area of the ditch, and jumped the fence to enter the cemetery.

The tracks led west, toward the cemetery’s main entrance at South Bridge Street.

There Ratliff found blood and quail feathers. He believes that’s where the cougar killed and ate the bird, the remnants of which he found in the cougar’s stomach.

Ratliff also found an area beneath a juniper tree, a hundred feet or so east of Bridge Street and just a few feet from the quail remains, where it appeared, based on the snow being melted and compressed, that the cougar had spent some time, possibly lying down.

From there the tracks went east.

Ratliff and Primus found another set of tracks, which they believe were made by the same cougar based on the size, toward the east edge of the cemetery.

Ratliff said that although there was no evidence of a second cougar, that’s not definitive proof that the cougar’s mother wasn’t in the area.

He said cougars at 6 months still are with their mother, although they don’t always travel close together.

Based on the cougar’s body condition, which Ratliff said was “not plump” but also not emaciated, he doubts the cougar, if it was orphaned, had been so for long.

A 6-month-old cougar is not able to kill larger prey, such as deer, and Ratliff said he would expect that a cougar of that age that had been separated from its mother for an extended period likely would be notably skinny.

Cemetery maintenance contractor hasn’t seen a cougar

Eric Pierce, owner of H&T Lawn Care, is the city’s maintenance contractor for the cemetery and parks.

Pierce, who was plowing snow in the cemetery while Ratliff and Primus tracked the cougar, said he’s usually in the cemetery a couple times a week during winter.

Pierce said he has seen deer, coyotes and foxes, among other animals, but never a cougar.

Ratliff and Primus saw several coveys of quail while tracking the cougar.

Baker City Police Chief Ty Duby said the department’s protocol is to kill cougars within the city limits if it’s safe to do so.

“It’s a matter of community safety,” Duby said on Feb. 6.

Both Ratliff and Duby said there have not been any reports of possible cougar sightings in or around the cemetery recently.

Although the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife manages game animals in the state as a publicly owned resource, including cougars, city police have the authority to kill a cougar inside city limits, said Brian Ratliff, district wildlife biologist at ODFW’s Baker City office.

“That decision is theirs to make,” Ratliff said.

As for ODFW’s policy, he said the agency will not try to capture, and relocate, any adult cougar (or bear) that presents a public safety risk within a city.

If ODFW employees can determine that a cougar kitten or bear cub is orphaned — finding the carcass of the mother nearby, for instance — the agency in some cases might try to find a zoo or other facility that would accept a young animal, Ratliff said.

“Each situation is unique,” he said.

If moving a juvenile animal to a zoo or other facility isn’t possible, then ODFW would euthanize the animal, Ratliff said.

Moving a young, orphaned cougar or bear to the wild would likely condemn the animal to a slow death by starvation, he said.

Oregon has a healthy population of cougars, Ratliff said.