Usually the cats move about invisibly, and no one need ascend the mountains in fear, panelists assembled for a Wasatch Journal forum at Westminster College said Thursday evening. Yet as Salt Lake County eclipses 1 million people and starts pushing neighborhoods into the Oquirrh Mountain foothills owned by Kennecott Utah Copper, the chances for interaction increase.

"We can live with them. We've been doing it for 150 years," said Michael Wolfe, a cougar researcher from Utah State University. "But it's becoming more of a challenge because there are more of us, and we spend more time in their homes."

The panelists, including several people who track cougars professionally, said even they have only encountered big cats once or twice when they weren't out looking for them with radio transmitters. But the predators come quite close to Utahns' homes when stalking deer, especially in winter when snow forces the prey lower into the valley.

Utah State doctoral student David Stoner leads the school's cougar research project and looks into the effects of urbanization on cougars. Contrary to popular opinion, he said, the animals live in low densities. There may be only two or three dozen lions in the Oquirrhs, with females ranging 30 or 40 square miles and males spreading out three times or more of that range.

"The real challenge is long-term habitat loss. As our cities expand, that's a permanent reduction in habitat," Stoner said. "It forces deer into backyards, and therefore anything that feeds on deer."

Ann Neville, Kennecott biological resources manager, said the company has a couple of years to study the likely effects of development into cougar habitat and plan for mitigation. If an envisioned ski resort opens in the Oquirrhs, she said, the example of the Wasatch resorts suggests that cougars could still thrive.

Several people in the audience had cougar stories of their own. Michael Budge of Bountiful said he encountered a wild cat near Skyline Drive in the hills behind town. It woke him while he slept in the back of his pickup in a campground there.

"It was amazingly catlike, just like your house cat, the way it looks at you," he said. "I spread my sleeping bag as wide as I could."

Actions like that to make oneself appear large when encountering a cat are wise, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources biologist Tom Becker said. Other tips include avoiding too much eye contact, walking carefully backward and yelling.

"The worst thing is probably to turn around," Becker said.

The forum was inspired by a cougar-tracking article by Stephen Trimble in the early-summer edition of the Wasatch Journal.