The Cougar Blog

Moving The CougarBlog

2010-02-11T13:30:00.003-06:00

I've been using Blogger to build and publish my blog, but rather than use their servers for hosting I have been using FTP to publish the blogs on my own site (The AndyZone). Recently, Blogger has decided that they are investing too many resources into maintaining FTP so they are ending that service as of March 31, of this year. Rather than surrender my content to their servers, I am switching to Wordpress and continuing to host the blogs on my own site. This notice will be the last entry made at this address.

To make WordPress work with my site, I had to make a small change in the blog's URL. This blog's new address will be: http://www.theandyzone.com/cougarblog/. Please bookmark the new address.

Thank you for your patronage.

Andy

The KOFA Story Continues

2009-10-22T09:36:00.002-05:00

Two months ago, my wife and I bought a light-sport aircraft in California and flew it back through Arizona and New Mexico to its new home in Texas. On the morning of the second day of our journey eastward, as we flew toward Phoenix and over the olive drab, sharp peaks of a cluster of Arizona mountains, I noticed we were flying through the northern part of the KOFA National Wildlife Refuge. Below were the bighorn sheep herds and the five mountain lions that were being painted as a catastrophic threat to them. I was happy to be able to see the place, though time and circumstance prevented me from exploring the lands on foot. I’ll have to go back there one day to prowl it on foot.

KOFA continues to suffer from the unethical conduct of Arizona Fish and Game. They continue to follow mountain lions collared within the peaceful confines of the refuge and use what are supposed to be research-related tools to shoot the lions once they step onto state of Arizona soil. They are conducting nothing less than a state-sanctioned and camouflaged hunt held in the name of protecting the bighorn herds. The reality is that the small population of mountain lions are the ones threatened with extinction, all in the name of giving the bighorns the edge, even though there is no science to back such a wildlife management approach. No one understands why the bighorn sheep population in Kofa has taken a hit but the lions are being blamed as they always are when some human political agenda is at work.

I wish I could say I was amazed at how state wildlife agencies seem to put politics ahead of wildlife management practices, but I see it all the time. Part of the problem is a backward view of our role in protecting ecosystems; we see them as things we can exploit instead of part of the very environment that nurtures us. This is a tremendous problem at the state level especially in areas where old world ranching and farming attitudes persist and they drive a large political block within the state. That’s true in Arizona and in Texas, though the increasing political pull of the cities here are slowly changing things. (A little too slow, if you ask me, but at least there is some hope.) I have sometimes seen a change in ranching attitudes on individual scales; one rancher in Idaho presented a calculation to a meeting of the state game commission that showed how lions on his property saved him money by decreasing the deer population that ate his hay. He forbids hunters taking lions on his property. But change is slow; too many state and even federal wildlife management managers still maintain attitudes that might have been appropriate for the late eighteen hundreds or the decades in the early twentieth-century where any predator was bad news. Hopefully, they will die off and be replaced by managers who understand the value of entire ecosystems and use science and not politics as their management tool.

For me, that time cannot come fast enough.

TP&WD: Cougars, Lies, and Websites

2009-02-10T21:49:00.006-06:00

The idealist inside me still likes to think that state wildlife agencies really do look after the states’ resources and protect and preserve all the wildlife in the state. The realist inside me knows this rarely happens, and that many state wildlife agencies are little more than political hacks that often cater to the wishes of hunting and ranching interests. Both those interests deserve to be protected, but not at the expense of the state’s charge to protect wild the resources within its boundaries.

At the very least, one would hope that state wildlife agencies would hold to the truth concerning wildlife and their management for the sake of the children of the state who will take what they are told as gospel. But my experience with TP&WD has shown that when it comes to cougars the truth will sometimes be whatever is politically expedient. I often wonder if they don’t need to change their name from “Texas Parks and Wildlife” to “Texas Perks and Wildlife”, since the directorship often seems to come from the presiding Governor’s political backers and whose sole interest seems to lie in preserving their ability to hunt what they want when they want to.

But that’s an issue for another day. Let’s go back to talking about TP&WD’s scientific credibility or, actually, their lack thereof. Take, for example, this quote on TP&WD’s web pages in the “Nuisance Wildlife” section about cougars. It’s at the end of the first paragraph: “Other states have become more restrictive in their regulations, making it difficult to manage expanding predator populations and an increase in human injury has occurred.”

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a pathetic attempt to justify Texas’ long standing tradition of classifying cougars as “nuisance wildlife”, which used to be the official classification until TP&WD was confronted by the Sierra Club some years back and TP&WD changed the classification to “non-game”. In either case, what it means is that Texas does not regulate mountain lion hunting in any sense; they may be killed for any reason at any time, including whether someone wants to kill one just for jollies. More importantly, there is NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE that justifies such a conclusion; this is a carry over from a myth that the hunting community has often tried to use to justify their own habits, i.e., that sport hunting keeps lion populations down and protects the public. (As if mountain lions can talk to each other about “how the human hunters are increasing” and “we need to stay away from all humans”. If you believe that, you might want to first stop watching so many cartoons.) In fact, in 2005, the Cougar Management Guidelines Working Group stated that “there is no evidence that sport hunting actually reduces mountain lion-human conflicts”.

Most experts agree that any increase in conflicts is usually due to increasing human encroachment on mountain lion habitat, a fact that is even referred to by TP&WD’s own brochure on mountain lions, which is actually pretty good. Concerning this subject, it states:

“Despite reports of mountain lion attacks on people in California, mountain lion attacks are rare. Only four attacks on humans in Texas have been reported since 1980, all of them in remote areas of West Texas. From 1890–2001, there were 98 attacks across the U.S. and Canada, 17 of those were fatal. Cougar attacks have increased during the past few decades but are still much rarer than other hazards from animals or nature. For example, dogs annually kill 18–20 people and inflict suture-requiring injuries on 200,000 U.S. residents. Increases in cougar attacks are probably due to increases in their numbers and more people using wildlands and building residences in areas where mountain lions live.”

So, how is it that TP&WD manages to capture the situation accurately in its brochure (above) but then manages to publish such mythology on its website? Obviously, there were two different authors, i.e., one who had the picture and one who didn’t.

To prove that, let’s look at the number of mountain lion attacks that have occurred in California since that state banned sport hunting of mountain lions. The law was passed in 1990. Here’s a table showing the number of mountain lion attacks that occurred in the state. The attacks include those that were fatal.

Year--Number of attacks (California)

1990--0
1991--0
1992--1
1993--2
1994--3
1995--1
1996--0
1997--0
1998--0
1999--0
2000--0
2001--0
2002--0
2003--0
2004--3
2005--0
2006--0
2007--1

If I disregard other factors (increase in human populations, decrease in mountain lion habitat), it’s hard to argue that the law caused an increase in human injury because of the two years of no injuries immediately after the law’s passage and the recurring multiple years of no injuries. Across a seventeen span, this averages out to .6 attacks/year or about one attack every two years. Without or without sport hunting, that’s not an unexpected number considering the close proximity of people to cougar habitat there.

See what I mean?

Thank God for PEER!

2008-04-30T21:24:00.001-05:00

One of the gifts of writing about the Arizona mountain lion controversy has been my introduction to PEER, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. From their webpage, “Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is a national alliance of local, state, and federal resource professionals”. The organization’s purpose is truly unique in that it “supports those who are courageous and idealistic enough to seek a higher standard of environmental ethics and scientific integrity within their agency”. In other words, this is an organization of current or past civil servants who are attempting to hold environmentally related government agencies feet to the fire. In other words, these are not regular “cilly servants” as I jokingly refer to them but the “Supermen of Civil Servants”. They are, at personal and perhaps professional risk, working to ensure that our wildlife and environmental agencies do what they are supposed to do.

Do you understand how great that is? At the same time, do you understand how sad it is they even need to exist?

It was PEER that was behind the recent and, sadly, probably temporary halt to the unethical mountain lion killings in the Kofa Mountains by agents of the Arizona Fish and Game Department.

Interestingly, for their trouble, they caught a lot of public wrath via comments placed in some Arizona newspapers by people who probably have never even seen a mountain lion, much less studied or handled one. These are largely the “only good mountain lion is a dead mountain lion” narcissists, the people who want what they want and to hell with the rest of ya. They are the people who can’t see past their own noses, much less take a glimpse at a much larger picture. Unfortunately, the people who do understand the good that PEER is doing (and every taxpayer needs to get behind them because, if they’re successful, they will ensure that we all get what we were supposed to for our tax dollars) were and are grossly outnumbered.

It’s a sad truth that these days of fast-moving technologies do not always ensure the spread of enlightenment.

One Step Forward But Two Steps Back

2008-04-20T20:10:00.004-05:00

It’s nice but rare when mountain lions get a break, but that is what has just happened for the small band of lions remaining in Arizona’s Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. The infamous Arizona Game and Fish Department, which had been abusing the sanctity of the Federal Wildlife Refuge to fit mountain lions with GPS collars then used to pinpoint the lion for execution once they wondered out of the refuge, has agreed to halt its culling while the National Wildlife Refuge finally works out a mountain lion management plan.

I hope this has happened because the management at the refuge, run by the US Fish and Wildlife Services, finally got a backbone. I’d like to think they realized their charter is to manage all wildlife. But I suspect the real reason has more to do with avoiding a public spectacle, if not a downright outcry, at the unethical and irresponsible tact they were taking. Maybe the recent mountain lions kills were enough to get somebody’s political back scratched. I just don’t know.

What I do know is that the attitude of Arizona Game and Fish is biased strongly toward preservation of the bighorn sheep, and that the fate of the mountain lion weighs little on their minds. I suspect there is some political ground they are trying protect, too, since they had been a prime supplier of bighorn sheep to other bighorn sheep recovery efforts. In any case, all you’ve got to do is read their webpage on predation management to see where they are. (Click here.) Frankly, the agency really needs to change its name to the Arizona Bighorn Sheep and Fish department, though I doubt if they’d stand for long with their new acronym (ABS&F).

A week or so go, you probably saw how a mountain lion running free in the Chicago area made the news. None of the articles referred to animal control departments or state wildlife agencies being called in to anesthetize the animal either for relocation or study, so I must assume that the police’s reactions were to shoot first and ask questions later, kinda like AGFD. Indeed, I am not underestimating the threat the puma may have ultimately been to the area’s children; but, in all likelihood, it was a captive release and somewhat used to people and less of a threat that the multitude of shots the police made when trying to kill it. (South Dakota officials, though, are speculating the cat came from the Black Hills.) But then, most people have no experience with mountain lions and know only of them how they are portrayed in the media, and that automatically makes them afraid. That’s too bad. It does the universe a disservice.

I’m beginning to wonder if mountain lions aren’t making a quiet comeback in areas where we typically don’t think of them. I’m not basing that on the Chicago area report, but on two reports of sightings I’ve received from areas in close proximity to Houston. One near Katy was very detailed and led me to believe that the cat might have been a transient on his way east, since there was a ravine in the area that shielded him from a nearby subdivision. The other was from a friend of mine whose family has a farm up near Palestine, and it was a sighting of a lion crossing a field as it followed some deer. I think it’s great if the cats are coming back, but the problem is that, if that is happening, we need to educate a lot more of the everyday populace about the lion’s value and how to act when around them. To promote them as kitty cats will, in the end, do just as much damage as promoting them as opportunistic killers who will kill people on sight. This website is an attempt to do what I can to further that goal; but, to make peaceful coexistence with mountain lions a reality in Texas (or anywhere there is a “shoot ‘em first” mentality), I’m going to need a lot more help.

Jaguar Interruptus

2008-03-24T20:28:00.000-05:00

Earlier this year, the US Fish and Wildlife Service decided that developing a jaguar recovery plan was just too much work. The few sightings of jaguars in Arizona proved that the jags were from Mexico, and therefore there was no viable population in the United States to develop. Yet, this is exactly what the Endangered Species Act as well as scientifically sound reintroduction programs are exactly about. What USFWS is saying just doesn’t make any sense until you understand that, once again, the policy was developed to meet human political needs, regardless of its impact on wildlife.

If USFWS had decided otherwise, it would not only have had to dedicate resources to a task it has been reluctant to do for almost a decade; but it would have run “head-to-head” into the Department of Homeland Security and its crazy idea of fortifying the southern American border by building a fence. Indeed, one of the unfortunate yet totally unstudied aspects of the border fence is its impact on wildlife. Such an impact is not limited to Arizona but exists wherever a state in this great country brushes up against the Mexican border. Big Bend National Park’s bear population is a great example of cross-border movement; for many years, there were no bears in the park but they showed up again in the early to mid nineties after venturing back from Mexico. Today, even though the bear population swells and recedes based on conditions both in the park and its southern neighbor, dealing with bear boxes is a fact of life for the camper almost anywhere in the park. The park just never knows where the bears are going to be or how many of them there are.

This same type of movement can be expected of the jaguar. While conditions in Mexico have been more favorable for a breeding population there than here, there is no way the USFWS can know whether that might change. Therefore, if the population or parts of it did move north, having a recovery plan in place to possibly enable the re-establishment of a US population seems like a wise thing to pursue. But, of course, by taking the stand they have, USFWS has not only dodged the legal and ethical entanglements they might face with the border fence, but they have ensured that a jaguar population will not re-establish itself here, making for more “feet-up” time back in the office. What bureaucrat would not want that?

The only hope for change is that a lawsuit being brought against USFWS by several environmental groups that would force USFWS to establish a recovery plan succeeds. It’s time the country and the courts look more critically at the border fence, not only because of its impact on local families and economies but the impact on wildlife as well. It’s easy to talk about security and prey on people’s fears to come up with solutions that at least sound good and make the government look like it’s doing something productive. It’s a lot harder to take all the complex issues involved and come up with a lasting and comprehensive solution, one that takes into account the harm the action also will do. That hasn’t been done with the border fence nor with the USFWS decision that, when it comes to jaguars, pays for it to sit on its collective ass.

Single-Species Management

2007-10-06T05:04:00.000-05:00

The picture above was taken of a mountain lion kill in Arizona. I’m sure your first thought was that the puma was killed by a recreational hunter, but the truth is uglier than that. This lion was killed by an employee of the Arizona Game and Fish Department. No, the cougar had not attacked a human. Nor had it taken someone’s livestock. The cardinal sin that cost this lion his life was the death of a bighorn sheep. You see, the herd of bighorn sheep in Arizona’s US Fish and Wildlife Service’s KOFA Wildlife Refuge has been declining, and the AGFD is blaming the decline of the herd on the lions, even though there is no science to support their claims and KOFA is within Federal jurisdiction. (In fact, the lion that was killed was collared to provide some science that would correlate or disprove the lion’s impact; and the AGFD killed the lion only three months after the collar was put in place. It would appear AGFD didn’t want any science…). The loss of that one bighorn (1 out of 390) was enough to cause wildlife managers to kill one of the only five mountain lions that live in KOFA and one that had been collared. This is the result of an ugly, undocumented philosophy that too often infects primarily state wildlife agencies called “single-species management”. It manifests itself in the death or elimination of the species that has fallen out of or never had political favor.

One would think that we had learned from the predator exterminations of the late eighteen and early nineteen hundreds how damaging to the ecosystem such an approach is. It was these exterminations that were the first practice of this philosophy, and its name indeed holds two edges of a very cutting sword. It is practiced by killing off a certain target species usually for the benefit of another species, the latter which may take the form of a proxy (such as bighorn sheep) but which is, in reality, man.

If you want to discover whether your state agencies are practicing single-species management, take a look at what wildlife they are protecting and exterminating and what science there is behind it. A good balanced wildlife management program may perform an act like reintroduction of a particular endangered or threatened species but will also have in it elements that take into account expected predation. A poorly run or planned program will not, will act with little or no scientific basis, and will inevitably result in some agency taking action against the offending species. This will be especially true when the program is politically popular either with powerful individuals within state governments or hunting lobbies that serve only short-sighted or self-serving goals (and not all of them do). A good sign that an agency is practicing single-species management, or variants thereof, will be when it cannot establish under outside scrutiny a good scientific basis for its actions. When any agency is not examining the ecosystem as a whole, except during scientific study when research goals may be narrower than that, what are we paying these professionals for? Is it to become the personal hunting guides or range managers of politicians who have no impulse to protect the public good? Is it to make the sole purpose of state wildlife agencies a provider for recreational hunting to fatten the pockets of local businessmen who will pay back what they earn in votes? One would think so. Somewhere, someway, the idea that wildlife and wilderness are essential resources for the whole society has been lost, and it has been the states more than the Federal government whose apathy and arrogance has made it so.

This not only appears to be the case for Arizona, but it holds true for Texas as well. At a Texas Parks and Wildlife sponsored mountain lion conference many years ago, us attendees were asked to help define the goals of the conference in an effort to make us all stakeholders and help us work together. I introduced a statement declaring that the “goal of the conference was to ensure the welfare of the mountain lion came first”. Texas Parks and Wildlife threw out that statement without comment. I knew instantly then that we were playing a political game, and those who were there cared more about their own agendas than they did about what happened to the mountain lion in Texas. Nothing has changed here since. Texas apparently doesn’t even track mountain lion mortality rates anymore, as feeble as that effort was to provide some kind of population data ten years ago. If they do, they don’t compile it because they’ve been unable to satisfy my requests for it within the last year.

People must become aware of how their own survival and quality of life depend on the health of the entire ecosystem around them. That especially includes the animals we call predators, which we are always too eager to kill whether it’s to calm our own fears or make life for us convenient and illusory safe. But such a reversal personal attitudes and abdication of personal responsibility is not likely to happen anytime soon. There are too many players entrenched in state governments who lose too much if things were to change, and too many people who feel like what happens to the mountain lion, or the outdoors itself, doesn’t affect them. It may take the lessons of global warming to teach them anything different, and it may be a lesson we learn as we take our dying breaths.

More Info on the Kofa Refuge Spat

2007-02-08T15:56:00.000-06:00

Read this article.

Arizona HCM 2008 – Arrogance at Its Best

2007-02-07T20:38:00.001-06:00

The House of Representatives in the State of Arizona has passed House Concurrent Memorial 2008 in which the US Congress is being petitioned to allow the Arizona Game and Fish Commission to take over mountain lion management within the boundaries of the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Kofa Wildlife Refuge. This is good ole boy arrogance at its best, the western “I don’t give a damn about the Feds or the courts” attitude that still prevails out here all too much. It is a blatant attempt to re-institute the Kofa mountain lion hunt in an attempt to ensure the safety of the bighorn sheep population, or so it has been said. There is absolutely no science behind that statement and it also shows the same 19th Century thinking that resulted in the unbalanced ecosystems the West is still suffering from today, i.e., that predators do not deserve the same priority in the ecosystem that tamer game animals do. Not only is such thinking stupid but it’s cowardly. If you’re afraid of being in the wilderness even with a gun, stay at home!

Included below is the text of the Arizona resolution. Below that is the text from a letter I wrote my Congressman tonight opposing the HCM. I urge everyone who gives a damn about protecting the ecosystem and mountain lions in particular to write your Congressman and object. After all, Arizona opened the door to Nationwide involvement with their HCM; let’s give them some!

HCM 2008

Introduced by
Representatives Weiers JP, Nelson, Senators Aguirre, Gorman, Miranda, O'Halleran: Representatives Campbell CL, Groe, Kavanagh, Senators Allen, Arzberger, Blendu, Flake, Gould, Hale, Johnson

A CONCURRENT MEMORIAL

urging the united states congress to take immediate action to allow the arizona game and fish commission to recover the kofa national wildlife refuge desert bighorn sheep population.

To the Congress of the United States of America:
Your memorialist respectfully represents:

Whereas, the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge was created primarily in response to concerns for historic declines in desert bighorn populations throughout the west, and the refuge is critical to the health of desert bighorn sheep; and

Whereas, the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge desert bighorn sheep population has declined from 800 sheep in 2000 to 390 sheep in 2006, as documented through extrapolation of data from surveys conducted by the Arizona Game and Fish Commission and the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge; and

Whereas, the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge is the primary source of desert bighorn sheep, mexicana subspecies, throughout the southwestern portion of the United States; and

Whereas, the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge has served as the primary resource for repatriation of desert bighorn sheep to mountain ranges in Arizona, Texas, New Mexico and Colorado and has repatriated at least 513 desert bighorn sheep in 25 of the past 49 years since transplanting began; and

Whereas, the decline in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge sheep herd coincides with periods of drought and a known increase in the resident population of mountain lions on the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge; and

Whereas, the current population of Kofa desert bighorn sheep is inadequate to support continuing repatriation; and

Whereas, failure to take immediate action will likely result in further decline and threaten the viability of the Kofa herd; and

Whereas, the Arizona Game and Fish Commission has a trust responsibility under title 17, Arizona Revised Statutes, to manage all wildlife in Arizona; and

Whereas, although the United States Fish and Wildlife Service is mandated to manage the natural resources of the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, its authority with respect to wildlife management is limited to migratory and endangered species; and

Whereas, since neither desert bighorn sheep nor mountain lions are migratory or endangered, the responsibility for their management rests principally with the Arizona Game and Fish Commission, and immediate management action is needed to secure the health and viability of the Kofa desert bighorn sheep population.

Wherefore your memorialist, the House of Representatives of the State of Arizona, the Senate concurring, prays:

1. That the United States Congress take immediate action to reaffirm the Arizona Game and Fish Commission's position as the lead agency in the management of nonmigratory and nonendangered state wildlife.

2. That the Arizona Game and Fish Commission employ, without any unnecessary delays, burdens or obstacles, all management tools and measures necessary to recover the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge desert bighorn sheep population, including the management of predators, water developments, human intervention and the potential for disease epizootics.

3. That the Secretary of State of the State of Arizona transmit copies of this Memorial to the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, each Member of Congress from the State of Arizona and the Director of the Arizona Game and Fish Department.

©2007 Arizona State Legislature.

Some additional information on HCM 2008:

http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/48leg/1r/bills/hcm2008o.asp

Here’s the text of the letter I wrote to Congressman Nick Lampson opposing the same:

Honorable Nick Lampson
436 Cannon HOB 
Washington DC 20515

Dear Congressman Lampson,

The Arizona House of Representatives recently passed House Concurrent Memorial 2008. This resolution asks the US Congress to authorize the Arizona Game and Fish Commission to take over management of mountain lions currently protected by the Kofa Wildlife Refuge managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. I am writing to voice my strong opposition to such a move.

The real reason behind the request is to sidestep Federal court rulings that have brought into question the practice of allowing hunts within the protected areas US wildlife refuges are supposed to be. In response to that ruling, the management in USFWS halted all hunting within their refuges, including a proposed mountain lion hunt advocated and supported by the chair of the Arizona Game and Fish Commission. If there was ever a hunt that needed to be stopped, it is the mountain lion hunt within Kofa. The “population” of cats at this point appears to be five animals, of which two are kittens, one is a female, and two are adult males. This is hardly a viable population for any purpose.

The bigger problem within the US Fish and Wildlife Service is the lack of science that supports their hunting policies. Indeed, the court rulings imply that the agency’s wildlife management policies are defective. It is my belief that an independent committee of scientists, biologists, and wildlife managers is needed to examine what has been happening within the country’s wildlife refuges, especially with regard to the allowance of hunting within wildlife refuge boundaries. It would not be the first time that external and independent committees have been charted to examine what a Federal agency has been doing; indeed, it amazes me sometimes that wildlife and other interior departments seem to be somewhat exempt from that type of scrutiny.

For the Kofa hunt in particular, there appears to be absolutely no scientific basis to allow hunting with such a small population of mountain lions. Supposedly, the USFWS was only going to allow the killing of one cat per year (which has to make one wonder about the validity of a hunt in the first place) and hunters were restricted to killing one of the adult males. I can tell you from personal experience that telling a male and female mountain lion apart from anything more than a few feet away is damn near impossible. Killing the female would possibly also result in the death of her kittens; but even if they did survive, it would raise serious doubts whether any more kittens would be born within the refuge.

Just on a cursory examination, it is also impossible that these mountain lions alone are responsible for the decrease in numbers of desert bighorn in the Kofa refuge claimed by the HCM. There is no science to support that claim, only the desire of hunters to justify their mountain lion hunting within the refuge.

I have no objection to mountain lion hunting when the impact on the population is sustainable and when there is good science to support the survivability of the species. However, the idea that bighorn sheep deserve a place in the evolutionary chain more than the mountain lion is dangerous, naïve, and old fashioned thinking that has already done its share of damage on the ecosystems of our West, of which Texas is a part. I ask you to oppose the Arizona HCM 2008 and the Kofa mountain lion hunt, in particular. I also ask you to institute one or more independent oversight committees to examine wildlife management policies of the US Fish and Wildife Service especially as they relate to hunting in our preserves.

Thank you for your time.
__________________________________________________________________
If you care about the fate of the mountain lion, I urge you to write your Congressman today!

I’ll let you all know what I hear back.

Kofa Hunt Postponed – What Next?

2007-01-11T20:58:00.000-06:00

Thankfully, the US Fish and Wildlife Service ordered the Kofa mountain lion hunt postponed. The lions are safe through 2007 and some of 2008. After that, what happens to them is anyone’s guess. In fact, I can guarantee you that unless the pressure is kept on, the lion population in Kofa will be in jeopardy in 2009.

I wish I could say that the USFWS has come to its senses, but that is not the case. The real reason the hunt has been postponed is because of a lawsuit by the Humane Society and a couple of other parties that questioned the opening of wildlife refuges to hunting by the very agency that was supposed to protect it. The court halted hunts in 36 wildlife refuges named in the lawsuit. In response, in what was a CYA (Cover You’re A..) move, the agency suspended all hunts in any refuge. This happened to take the Kofa hunt out with it, at least for now.

But to think that the problem is solved is the height of self-delusion. More must be done if we want to make sure our wildlife get a fair shake and the employees of the US government we pay do what is expected of them when it comes to protecting resources.

The courts have ordered the USFWS to conduct more in-depth environmental impact studies before allowing any more hunts. Can the USFWS be trusted to do the job? Well, most certainly some USFWS employees can; but there is no way for the average Joe Blow to know whether or not one of those is assigned to the studies. Therefore, I believe that Congress needs to appoint independent committees of wildlife experts to investigate and study the matter. Many of these people need to be the best and most renown in their fields. This committee (or committees) could remain in place to advise the USFWS on their forward policies and ensure that the proper balance between wildlife preservation and hunting or other outdoor activities is maintained.

For instance and for mountain lions in particular, the “reservoir” approach advanced by Dr. John Laundre, formerly of Idaho State University, would seem to apply to mountain lion management in wildlife refuges. In this scenario, the refuge itself would be protected to nurture mountain lion populations which will naturally disperse outward. The expanding mountain lion population outside the reservoir (refuge) would provide ample hunting opportunities, and the “reservoir” would tend to replenish cats killed.

In any case, whether this scheme was adopted or not, the bottom line would be that the best interests of wildlife would have a better chance of being served than they do now.

Think about this. If you have a better idea, then let me know what it is. If you think my idea of independent oversight of this issue is a good idea, write your Congressman and Senator and let them know that it needs to be done. Certainly, we can’t wait for this issue to hit the courts again; we might not be as lucky next time at getting an objective.

The Kofa Kill – Wildlife Management at Its Worst

2006-12-23T06:15:00.000-06:00

Too often in this country, true wildlife management gets superceded by the political wills and desires of its administrators. This is exactly what’s happening in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona. The National Wildlife Service there is proposing to open the refuge to hunting mountain lions, at the behest of The Yuma Valley Rod and Gun Club, whose legislative chair is also reported to be chairman of the Arizona Game and Fish Commission.

The Mountain Lion Hunting Plan, prepared by NWS states that; “At this time, insufficient data exists to determine the sustainability of the hunt beyond the harvest of one lion annually.”

I’m not convinced there is any data at all to show that even that is sustainable. Plain common sense would suggest it is not. Here’s why.

If you dig into the plan a little bit, you’ll find that the supposed mountain lion population consists of two adult males, one adult female, and a couple of kittens, sex unknown. Obviously, the lynch pin in this little population is the female, since it will be a couple of years before one of the kittens, if one of them is a female, will be able to have kittens. The plan states that “Spotted kittens or females accompanied by spotted kittens may not be harvested. However, because females are not always accompanied by their kittens, hunters will be encouraged to take male lions rather than females to avoid orphaning kittens.” Sounds good, doesn’t it? But the reality is there is absolutely no way to enforce this. I’m willing to bet you that few if any of the hunters allowed into the refuge have ever seen a mountain lion and could tell you from scope distance whether the cat they’re shooting at is a male or a female. It’s tough enough to so standing three feet away. If the hunters are using dogs and they have the animal treed before they shoot it, then there is a chance a truly conscienscious hunter might get a cat at the right angle to see the genitilia with a pair of binoculars. But I’m going to bet you that adrenaline will take over here, and that the first time any hunter is going to know whether he has bagged a male or female is when he’s petting it after the kill. So, the odds are that this plan will result in the death of the female. Assuming her kittens are still spotted, there is a one in three chance.

This is most troublesome because female mountain lions do not disperse like males do. Once the female is lost, there is much uncertainty about how long it will be before another female shows up. Hopefully, the hunt would be shut down once it was determined that the female was dead, and one of her kittens would be a female that took her place. It would be a couple of years before the hunt could be resumed if that were the case, and it might never resume if another female did not show up. There is some reason to think the latter might be the case since the plan admits that: “Mountain lions have long been considered occasional transients on Kofa NWR, not residents.” The excitement started in mid 2000 with a hunter sighting and in 2003 with the spotting of three mountain lions by a biologist performing an aerial survey. Indeed, despite the continuing human encroachment into mountain lion habitat, mountain lions are staging a limited comeback in some parts of the country. Here, though, I would hardly call a population of five cats, and of which there is only one confirmed female, a comeback. Nor would I have rushed to start hunting the critters. Yet, the NWS seems to be doing just that. One has to ask, “Why?”

There is no doubt in my mind that this action is premature from a biological standpoint. Now, I will admit I’m not a biologist. I do have a feeler out to someone who is for some feedback. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or maybe it does, since I might be considered one) to look at the numbers and see they don’t add up. It’s too bad I am not a biologist, because if the determination that this size of a mountain lion population was made by what appears to be the Refuge’s only biologist, then he or she seems to need a second opinion.

My problem also is I’m not convinced that’s how the determination was made. I’ve been involved with Texas mountain lion politics enough to see the state bend over like a whore in heat to exploit lion populations to please a high-ranking state official (or ex-official who still had a lot of political pull); and I have to wonder if some form of the “good ole boys club” isn’t at work behind this. I have no objection to hunting lions where the population can sustain it, but this plan looks to me like it’s really premature, and that those who are charged with protecting wildlife have lost their way.

Shooting Our Way In

2006-04-19T07:16:00.000-05:00

I keep hoping that Fish and Game Departments and associated government agencies will show they really understand wildlife management, but I am continuously disappointed. Instead, they tend to demonstrate that they truly are bureaucracies, and their true purposes for existence have more to do with political and economic ends rather than the grandiose purposes their charters often state.

It was our government, albeit the federal one, that carried out the predator eradication programs of the early 1900’s that so decimated mountain lion populations in this country. Today, these programs continue. This is despite the fact that there is scientific data that shows it is a failed policy. But the programs give the appearance of being successful in a small area, and therefore keep the local constituents happy. They make the governments look like they are doing their jobs.

Too many state wildlife agencies are run as state “hunting promotion” agencies. Since much of their revenue is derived from the sale of hunting licenses and tags, they have a vested interest in ensuring that hunting continues to bring in the dollars they need. Additionally, since many politicians are into guns and hunting, these agencies aren’t about to let anything get in their way since they know who butters their bread. There is less altruism to the wildlife management ideal than and more attention paid to their economic and political machines. The only thing they really have to do with wildlife is pay attention to the ones running their own agencies.

When I was participating in my second mountain lion expedition in southern Idaho, I happened to be there during a bighorn sheep reintroduction effort. I videotaped the release and listened to the conversations about it between John Laundre, our team’s leader and biologist, and Ken Jafek, the lead houndsman. Ken had been the driving force behind the bighorn program. He and John talked about the possibility that a mountain lion could take some sheep; John said he just hoped the cats behaved themselves. That struck me as a nervous statement, and that John knew more about what would happen then than he was saying.

Near the end of the week, Ken dropped by to tell John that one of the radio collared sheep had not moved in twenty-four hours. That meant it was more than likely dead. A day or so later, the group of us took the tracking dogs and climbed up a small hill topped by an outcrop of rock in the middle of a large, grassy plain to look for a trail that a mountain lion might have left behind. The dogs split into two groups and so did we; the other group cornered a male mountain lion a couple of hours later. It was a hundred and fifty pound young male we named “Fritz”.

When I got there, Fritz was asleep, knocked out by a drug combination that let us freely handle him. After taking data and photos, we loaded Fritz into the back of a pickup truck and drove away, hoping to relocate him to an area where the sheep were not. I was one of the last to pile in with him; and, as a result, I wound up sitting over the cat, my legs touching him lightly as they arched over his sleeping body. You can believe I got on the radio and hollered at John that we needed to stop soon when I felt the cat moving under me and starting to wake up. John, in true mountain man fashion, said for me to keep my britches on, we were almost there.

Crossing open plains but still on dirt roads, we got only twenty miles or so away from our original location before we stopped. John dragged Fritz out of the truck, and I walked with the cat a bit to keep him moving as the effects of the drugs wore over. (They tend to want to go back to sleep, and that is counterproductive and dangerous since it exposes them to hunters or other predators.) Our expedition ended a day or so later, and I left only to hear later that Fritz had returned to the area and the Fish and Game folks had taken him out.

What gave the bighorn more rights than the mountain lion who was already established there?

Now, I can actually understand taking out a cat or any other predator to help a reintroduction effort. Still, the practice leaves me always with mixed feelings. In the case of the mountain lion, because it is a predator and none too popular among most human political constituents, it is all too easy to kill the animals off without regard to any damage that such efforts might inflict on the “unpopular” population. To regulate animal populations by what is popular or economical smacks of the same kind of self-centered and somewhat childish approaches that engendered the animal genocide programs of the early twentieth century. Lest I leave you thinking that Arizona is the only villain executing this type of thing, I will tell you that in addition to the kill I have personal knowledge of in Idaho, a well-known mountain lion expert told me that California and New Mexico also engage in the practice. I have no doubt that Texas does, too.

The whole point of a reintroduction effort is to restore a natural balance that man has somehow disrupted. While we’re doing that, let’s not become our own worst enemy. Otherwise, by doing it the way we are, we’re simply proving in a different way we haven’t learned a thing.

In Mountain Lion Country

2006-03-29T20:02:00.000-06:00

I discovered my interest and my love of mountain lions largely because of my visits to Big Bend National Park. The beauty, ruggedness, and openness of Big Bend has always called to me, and I get out there as much as I can to restore my sanity and my soul. I took a few days last week to head out the park.

The first day and night I spent in a backcountry campsite near Pine Canyon, i.e. Pine Canyon 3 to be exact. Pine Canyon is one of those places it’s rumored that mountain lions like, and it is one of the places in the park where mountain lion/human confrontations have taken place. PC3 is far enough away from the canyon itself and in open country so the odds of a lion being here are small. It’s up in the canyon itself where there is some forest and even a waterfall after it rains that the cats like a lot more.

Frankly, I didn’t make it up into the canyon. I was hiking with some new boots, and they became problematic very quickly. So, I didn’t hike much when I was there and didn’t get up into the canyon at all. Other people did. I heard nothing about anyone seeing any cats up there.

The next day I moved to a campsite in Juniper Canyon and hiked the trail that eventually snakes up into the mountains not far from Boot Spring. On the way in, I met up with a bunch of younger male hikers; and they said the rangers had warned them to be on the lookout for mountain lions. One, in particular. I thought that strange since I had always known Boot Spring as more of an area for black bears. When I had seen a bear up there, it had been between Boot Spring and the South Rim. Indeed, the trailhead sign warned abut bears, not cats. Later, I would discover that the reason for the warning was that a camper in a Boot Spring campsite had reported being stalked by a lion, though the cat had not attacked. That was one of two recent incidents that had happened a month previously to my trip and about two weeks apart. The other incident involved a mountain lion stalking a mule train making its way up the Laguna Meadows trail. The spacing of the events made me think the same cat had done them both, and the fact that nothing had happened in the last month led me to believe that the specific threat from it had probably passed. The park was covering its legal ass by posting signs warning there was heightened mountain lion activity at most of the trailheads and in the Chisos Basin campground.

The desert was proving a bit hotter than I had hoped for (80 degrees or better even in February), so I moved by activities up into the cooler Chisos Mountains. I got a campsite on the campground’s east side right along a little ravine. The camp host told me that folks staying in my campsite a few days before me had seen a mountain lion near the ravine just before dawn; if I continued to get up early, maybe I would, too. Well, one could hope. To me, seeing a mountain lion is a glorious thing, as long as I don’t see him in the air with claws out…

Once established in the campground, I hiked down the Windows trail toward mid-day, doing my usual “alone” thing a little later in the day than the cats were usually out. I didn’t see hide nor hair of any kitty, and neither did anyone else. The only real mountain lion activity of the whole trip would come a day or so later when Ranger Dan gave a little talk up at the Chisos Trailhead about mountain lions and how to stay safe around them.

The ranger was a young and affable guy in his late twenties or early thirties, a seasonal ranger who was hoping to go full time. As part of his rites of initiation, another, older ranger was videotaping his talk which would be later “peer reviewed” by established bureaucrats in the Park Service who would use it to help determine if this young man had the “right stuff” to become one of them. Whatever that meant. To move on, without the use of any aids other than his storytelling skills, the young ranger proceeded to reveal the Secrets of the Mountain Lion via stories about the two most recent encounters between man and mountain lion that had occurred in the park. Together, they illustrated the “right” and “wrong” way of handling oneself when confronted by a “cat”, part of which was due to the Park Service’s education of visitors about mountain lion safety. While I knew many details of the stories, I did learn more about what actually happened than I previously knew; and for that, I was grateful. One attack had been performed by an old cat desperate for food and on her way out, and the other was by a young male, the most likely age and sex for a cat to get into trouble.

The Park Service is in the business of making people wary about the mountain lion. Respect but not fear of the animal is always warranted. Most of the time, you’re probably not going to know you’re even near one of them, a fact borne out by a Big Bend study that logged an animal within feet of a heavily used trail and not one person reported seeing the cat. Even if you do see one, more than likely, it’s not going to be interested in you if you’re an adult. The odds go up significantly that it might think you’re prey if you’re petite and scared. Children are especially at risk, which is part of why the Park was exhibiting a schizophrenic approach to mountain lion safety. They were warning adults not to hike alone but then were doing nothing to stop or mitigate the activities of an elementary school class from Houston that had traveled up into the mountain trails in mass. That told me that the warning signs were mainly a legal maneuver. But back to the real subject, which is the difference between respect and fear.

Most people have never even seen a mountain lion, and what they know of them are from stories told in the press or by people who have something to gain by making the animals appear as ferocious as they can. My experience with them is that they neither completely fear nor respect people. As long as they don’t see you as prey (and they usually don’t), they will move away from you. Admittedly, when we handled them, they were drugged silly; still, they exhibited no hostility toward us. That said, an experience I had with one young cat suggests that the “prey response” is fairly automatic, and they can kick into seeing you as prey if your behaviors or other factors of your physicality suggest you are. The worse thing you can do is exhibit strong fear when you’re around them, not only because they can sense it but because it can cause you to do the wrong thing. There’s a lot to be said for having a peaceful soul when dealing with them or any other animal; yet, at the same time, accepting them for what they are and not some morphed cartoon of what you’d like them to be is part of what will keep you safe. They are built to be predators, but they are not built to prey on you.

Most mountain lion attacks are not fatal. The difference between whether you survive an attack or not can and does depend on whether you fight back. One of the houndsmen on one of my trips told me how he fetched his dogs trapped in a cave with a mountain lion by attacking the cat with a ball cap, a maneuver that startled the cat just enough to allow him to get the dogs out of harm’s way before the cat killed them. The attacks at Big Bend also illustrate that you are more likely to suffer debilitating or fatal injury if you let the cat get behind you. Its modus operandi is to attack from behind where it can more easily sink claws and fangs into your neck or head. In both confrontations at the Park the ranger talked about, the confrontations began with the cat facing people “head on”, a sign that something wasn’t right with the cat in the first place. In one case, a little boy who ran was jumped and seriously hurt by the cat; in the other, the adult of the group suffered serious lacerations of a hand, but no one else suffered any injury. The difference was that the second group continuously banded together and faced the cat. Mountain lions are very smart and fragile killers; they seem to weigh the odds of their own injury even during an attack; if you cause them to doubt they can carry it off without getting hurt, I believe they will more than likely break it off.

Whenever I hike in mountain lion country, I always put some good size rocks in my pockets and carry a walking stick I can use to help fend off a lion. The rocks are to throw at a critter that is becoming too curious or threatening; in the case of the latter, I will aim to hit him as hard as I can between the eyes. The stick is to hopefully keep me out of claw range, though I’m never sure I could really keep a good grip on the thing if a cat swatted it hard enough, which will be one of the first things he would try. Will I automatically start yelling and screaming and throwing rocks just because I see a mountain lion? No. I’m not going to do anything to bother him unless he starts stalking me or acting interested. At that point, I will take the attitude that a good offense if the best defense; and I will act decisively to scare it or drive it off. But that’s just me. Most advocates will advise you to take offense immediately; and that is the “better safe than sorry” approach.

So, how do you know if a mountain lion thinks you’re prey or if he’s going to attack? If you want to learn what attack behaviors might look like, then just watch your friendly house cat as he goes after his “prey”, no matter what that is. The mountain lion and the domesticated cat are of the same biological family and genus and their behaviors mirror each other in many respects. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking that, because that is so, you can walk up to your neighborhood mountain lion and give it a pat on the head. I’ve seen people do it when a cat was drugged silly and the cat hated it so much that it made the effort to raise its head and snarl, despite the fact that we thought it otherwise asleep.

They’re beautiful animals, but they’re still predators.

Cougars As the Bad Guys

2005-12-14T05:23:00.000-06:00

I got an e-mail note from a gentleman in northwest Texas inquiring if there was some call that could be used to “call” a cougar so it could be shot. Apparently, he’s having some kind of predator problem up there, and he’s convinced it’s a cougar problem because several good sized dogs have been taken and some cougars have been spotted on the highways. Indeed, there is some reason to suspect that they may have a cougar problem out there; he told me a rancher let loose several cougars that had been captives. These cats don’t typically do well in the wild and often become problem animals trying to survive. But, if that’s true, the cougar is the symptom of the problem. The real problem here is man. Too many people acquire cougars as pets and then turn them loose as they get older and more expensive, creating a huge problem not only for the cougar but also for the people they will undoubtedly run into.

What also bothered me about that situation was the writer’s assumption that it had to be cougars that were the problem because nothing else could kill dogs that size. Not true. Coyotes now account for the largest numbers of livestock lost in our country, and they will take dogs and pets, too. It’s unlikely it could be black bears out where he was, but in some parts of the country, that could be true as well. He assumed that cougars were the problem and what was needed was some “population control”. We need population control of people, even worse; but we don’t usually shoot them when they become problematic, even when it might be a good idea. The reality is I didn’t see enough information to tell me anything other than there was a problem and some reason to think it might be cougars causing it. That’s not the same as finding tracks, examining kills and kill sites, and establishing with some scientific basis what animal or animals might be involved. Killing off the wrong predator could make a situation worse, even though I know there’s plenty of folks out there who believe the only good predator is a dead one. That’s hypocritical if you ask me since they’ve obviously not taken a gun to their own heads. Man is, after all, the worst predator of them all; if you don’t believe me, just pick up the newspaper or turn on the TV.

Welcome to The Cougar Blog

2005-05-08T10:33:00.000-05:00

I'm not as involved with cougar issues in Texas as I used to be, but this blog is an attempt to get me back into as much as I'd like to be. Texas is a tough state to be in and deal with this issue; the cats are viewed as "varmints" here, even though the state changed the official designation to avoid that word and the associated heat that went with it. But make no mistake about it. The state's protection of the animals has not changed. It simply doesn't exist.

Yet, there are cougars in large portions of the state. I had an e-mail report of one up in the Spring area, north of Houston, a few months ago. The big question is whether the cat was a captive release or had made its way there in the wild. At this moment, there is no way to know, though I would suspect it is the former. But the reality is that between the palsity of effort to properly manage the cats in the state of Texas and the animal's natural secretiveness, there is no way to know. I haven't seen any newspaper reports of more sightings or of a kill, so I don't know if that cat is still up there.

Likewise, I hear from my wife's family up in Missouri all the time about mountain lion sightings up there. The same questions remain.

My hope is that with this blog I will rekindle my own involvment and engender discussion and revelation about the mountain lion in Texas and elsewhere. Comments to this blog will be enabled, so you can comment directly on the blog about anything I wwrite here. You can also send me an e-mail. Or just read along. No matter. If I've gotten you (and me) to think about cougars, then the blog has done what I'd hoped it would do.