ROSEBURG — Cougars have been unusually visible recently in Southern Oregon’s Douglas County.

Early Thursday, a police officer’s patrol car accidentally hit one in downtown Roseburg. It was later tracked down and shot within a block of an elementary school.

The Roseburg News Review reported that two other cougars have been shot, and several other sightings have been reported.

“There were cougar incidents all over Douglas County within the last week, to be honest,” said wildlife biologist Mike Burrell of the U.S. Agriculture’s Wildlife Services office. “Sometimes they just come in spurts like this for unknown reasons.”

In Bend, a 117-pound cougar was trapped and killed May 12 by wildlife officials and Deschutes County Sheriff’s deputies in the in the Deschutes River Woods area after several residents reported cougar sightings.

In Ashland, officials said a cougar was seen Friday feeding on a deer in Lithia Park.

Burrell said the cougar in downtown Roseburg was an average-size adult, about 110 pounds, that probably fed on cats, dogs and urban deer.

“Obviously, it is not too afraid of human activity, which is the first sign, a flag up for us, of abnormal behavior,” Burrell said.

A logger on his way to work before 4:30 a.m. reported the cat.

When an officer arrived, the cat ran in front of the cruiser, was hit and injured, and then ran off.

Mark Dowdy, a trapper with Wildlife Services, was called in. His dog, Puck, eventually cornered the cougar but suffered serious scratches in the process. The dog is expected to survive.

Burrell said Douglas County cougar sightings usually are in agricultural “buffer zones.”

“It seems like we are getting more and more cougars passing the buffers and coming into the city,” he said.

He said he expects more sightings this summer as the big cats migrate to lower elevations for better water sources.

Burrell said cougars are generally solitary animals who surprise their victims.

“If one really wants to contact a human,” he said, “the human is not going to have a chance to see it coming.”