Press Release from the Mountain Lion Foundation:
State wildlife agencies across the American West must re-examine
their mountain lion management strategies, following a study released
today by the Mountain Lion Foundation.
Although wildlife agencies often argue that sport hunting is
necessary to reduce mountain lion attacks, the study found no evidence
to support this belief.
The study compared the relative numbers of mountain lion attacks on
people and livestock in states with mountain lion sport hunting to the
number of attacks in California -- a state without mountain lion sport
hunting.
"If sport hunting actually reduced attacks," said Christopher Papouchis, conservation biologist and author of the
study, "then states with sport hunting should have had relatively fewer
attacks than California. That was not the case."
The study found there were fewer attacks on people and livestock in
California than in many states where lions are sport hunted, relative to
number of people, livestock and square miles of mountain lion habitat.
Further, the study found California kills the fewest mountain lions
of all states with viable mountain lion populations.
http://www.edugraphics.net/ga7-wildlife/ga754-l1.htm
Website for Mountain Lion photo
California's hunting ban provided an excellent case-study,
underreal-life situations over a period of 34 years, to examine the
relationship of sport hunting to attacks on humans and livestock,
according to the study's author.
Although some state wildlife agencies and hunting groups have claimed
that sport hunting reduces mountain lion attacks, this study found
otherwise.
While the study's author and mountain lion conservation advocates
acknowledge this study cannot absolutely "prove" that sport hunting is
not an effective conflict-reduction strategy, they argue the evidence
certainly forces wildlife agencies to look for proven strategies.
"From this point forward," says Lynn Sadler, President of the
Mountain
Lion Foundation, "any state agency that claims sport hunting is anything
more than the random shooting of mountain lions for fun will have to
prove it."
The full study can be found at
www.pumaconservation.org.
The Mountain Lion Foundation is a national non-profit wildlife
conservation and education organization, dedicated since 1986 to Saving
America’s Lion.
The Mountain Lion Foundation is a leading authority on
the conservation of mountain lions and their habitat.
http://www.mountainlion.org
