The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has begun killing cougars in Jackson County as part of its study into whether curbing cougar numbers can improve public safety and reduce livestock loss.

An ODFW technician Tuesday killed the first two of the 24 cougars that will be removed here as part of this study, which is outlined in the state's new cougar plan that has been widely criticized by animal-rights activists.

Dan Jenkins, from the ODFW's Roseburg office, trapped the cougars on a Lake Creek area ranch and shot them, said Mark Vargas, the ODFW's Rogue District wildlife biologist in Central Point.

They were young "sub-adults," a male and a female, which were taken to the department's Roseburg office late Tuesday, Vargas said.

These were the first so-called "administrative removal" of up to 20 percent of cougars in the "Jackson County Target Area," which encompasses 963 square miles around the Bear Creek corridor, the Lake Creek and Applegate areas and the upper Rogue River from Trail down to the Josephine County border.

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Steve Denney, the ODFW's Southwest regional supervisor, said the technician will continue working half-time each week looking to trap cougars throughout the target area until all 24 are killed. Denney gave no timetable for it, and the cost won't be known until the technician's work is completed, he said.

Once all 24 animals are killed, the agency will then measure its effectiveness using a series of criteria laid out in its cougar plan, mainly by tracking the numbers of cougars killed other than by sport hunters in the ensuing year and other statistics.

The target area here is to study the impacts that reduced cougar numbers have on livestock damage, big-game loss and human-pet safety conflicts.

"It's part of the plan that we're trying to implement and we're moving forward," Denney said.

Cougar plan critic Sally Mackler, wildlife chair of the Sierra Club chapter of Oregon, condemned the actions, saying randomly targeting cougars to be killed is wrong. She said it could even exacerbate conflicts by helping create short-term spikes in the numbers of young cougars, which statistically are responsible for more livestock and pet losses.

Mackler called it less scientific but more "political" way to address Oregonians' fears of cougars by killing them.

"I'm certainly no fan of this," Mackler said. "It just confirms my concerns regarding the plan. We have embarked on indiscriminate killing of cougars in this state."

Two other areas in Oregon also are part of the overall study, which was a key component of the Cougar Management Plan adopted in April by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission.

The East Beulah Livestock Target Area comprises 1,000 square miles in Malheur County, where a maximum 12 cougars will be killed to help reduce livestock damage. The Heppner Target Area encompasses 1,189 square miles, where up to 30 cougars will be killed to reduce loss of big-game animals, according to ODFW documents.

To date, no cougars have been killed in the East Beulah Target Area for the study, while nine have been killed in the Heppner Target Area, ODFW statistics show.

The cougar plan initially called for the federal Wildlife Services — the so-called "government trappers" hired by counties to hunt cougars causing damage — to kill the cougars for the study.

But the federal National Environmental Policy Act precluded Wildlife Services from taking part in the study until an environmental assessment of the study's impact was complete.

That environmental assessment is not yet complete, but it is expected to go out for public comment some time soon.

State agencies, however, are not bound by the so-called NEPA rules, ODFW administrators chose to begin the project by doing the cougar-killing itself.

Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail mfreeman@mailtribune.com.