Examining how conserving the state endowment lands around Payette Lake - including Cougar Island- could protect not only Big Payette Lake but the ecology of one of Idaho’s most prized watersheds.

By Jeff Mousseau, United Payette Steering Team Member for the Star News.

Among the wonderful things we take for granted here are the two major islands in Payette Lake, Cougar and Shellworth.

Sitting just north of the Ponderosa State Park peninsula that extends into Payette Lake lies 14-acre Cougar Island, a tree-covered haven surrounded by deep blue waters. But the island we now know as Cougar wasn’t always called that.