fair hooker,
The cougars do control the deer herd, but when the population of cats gets too high the deer herd dwindles dramatically. Like right now. In most of western washington you can't see a dozen deer on a night of driving around the backroads when you used to be able to see 30-40. Now I know this isn't all because of the cougars, but they do eat a deer a week. I'm sure a few narrow minded individuals will jump and say " I got deer all over my area" well it won't be long and the cats will be there to take care of them.

It won't be long and the fuzzy bunny people will figure out whats happening to the deer and they'll start complaining to the WDFW about how they aren't doing their job. When in reality they're the ones who helped wipe the deer herds out by wiping out the hounds.

By the way there are way more encounters than those stats show. Probably that many in lewis county alone. Country folk don't run to the man every time they have a problem.