Cougar hunting....

[Bigmack]

Excellent piece on why cougar hunting may be bad for both humans and cougars. I think this is yet another example of how humans try to fine-tune the environmental watch with a sledge hammer.
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Is cougar hunting breeding chaos?
By Sandi Doughton
Seattle Times science reporter

snip.....
.......... in northeastern Washington, where the state has stepped up hunting in response to soaring numbers of complaints about cougars, including two attacks on toddlers. A bill signed by Gov. Christine Gregoire last week could expand the cougar killing.
But startling results from studies question this traditional approach to cougar management.
Instead of reducing conflicts between cougars and humans, heavy hunting seems to make the problems worse, says Robert Wielgus, director of Washington State University's Large Carnivore Conservation Laboratory.
"It goes against the grain of what we've been doing for decades," Wielgus says.
Killing large numbers of cougars creates social chaos, Wielgus and his students found. Trophy hunters often target adult males, which act as a stabilizing force in cougar populations. The adults police large territories and kill or drive out young males. With the grown-ups gone, the "young hooligans" run wild, Wielgus says.
"Every time you kill a dominant male, about three of these young guys come for the funeral."
Evidence suggests cougars under two years of age, just learning to live on their own, account for the majority of run-ins with people and domestic animals. "You don't get to be an old cougar by doing stupid stuff like hanging out in backyards and eating cats," Wielgus says.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004285453_cougar16m.html

[lonestarnot]

1. Trophy hunters make me sick! Can't we send them to an island and let them hunt each other?

[ThomWV]

2. You just awoke a memory. I ate one onetime.

I was in Idaho visiting an old friend gone hermit. Joe has always been a hunter, at least since we met as teenagers in the Miami, Florida of the late 60's. Anyway Joe insisted that we go kill an elk, and I wasn't all that much against the idea, so off we went. He gave me a rifle, I believe it was a 300 Winchester Mag, might have been a Remington 700, not sure anymore. We went to the spot of his choosing which was a ravine for me to place myself in and to watch over the small clear cut in the valley deep below us. He moved off to a second ravine and started banging antlers. We had been there a little less than an hour and I had heard him rattle twice when I heard the shot. I hadn't seen a thing but Joe had fired. I called out and he said it was safe to come over. He had just shot a big cat. A few minutes after he rattled the antlers the last time he got an odd feeling. Probably subconsciously heard a twig snap or something, but he looked over his shoulder and there the Cougar was, about 20 feet behind him and crouched. He swung around and shot it straight down the middle. We ate it that night.

[HereSince1628]

3. So then that means our local Wisconsin cougar is probably a hooligan?

That's comforting, or not.