Cougar overharvest. . . didn't know this was the problem!!

[packmule]

All,

See below, evidently we've been overharvesting cougars in the past few years.  This new study should help to explain why there are so many deer around and no cougar sign!


http://www.cbbulletin.com/423008.aspx
WSU 13-Year Study Leads To New WDFW Cougar Management Plan To Reduce Overharvesting Posted on Thursday, September 27, 2012 (PST)
 

Overharvest of cougars can increase negative encounters between the predator and humans, livestock and game, according to a 13-year Washington State University research project. Based on this, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is implementing a new cougar management plan.


Starting in January, Washington will employ equilibrium management - hunters will remove no more than the surplus of animals that would be generated through natural reproduction.


This means that each of the state’s game management units will have a quota allowing for harvest of no more than 14 percent of that area’s cougars. Once the limit is filled, cougar hunting will be suspended for the year in that unit. Hunters will be allowed to take their tags to other units that haven’t reached the limit.


For years, cougar management operated on the presumption that every cougar shot meant one cougar less to prey on livestock, game and pets. But the 13-year study headed by Rob Wielgus, director of WSU’s Large Carnivore Conservation Lab, has overturned that presumption.


After years of data collection, researchers made a surprising observation. Whether hunters killed 10 percent or 35 percent of cougars, the population remained the same. The old paradigm of wildlife management would explain this by saying the remaining population increased reproduction to make up for hunting. But this was not the case.


In fact, reproductive success actually decreased. Data showed that adult males, "toms,” are intolerant of adolescent males and will kill them to maintain their territory and breeding rights. Juvenile males can only survive by avoiding adult males. When hunting removes most adult males, the adolescent males survive and cause all sorts of trouble.


While adult cougars tend to avoid humans and livestock, juveniles are less cautious: "They’re teenagers,” explained Wielgus. "They’re sexually mature, but mentally they’re not all there.”


This is compounded by the fact that adolescent males have larger territories than mature toms, but don’t maintain exclusive territories as do adult males. Livestock and elk herds might have one mature tom in the area, but removing that tom could bring in three or four adolescents, multiplying troubles.


Without adult male protection of females and their litters, infanticide becomes a problem, as the young toms kill kits to bring the mother into heat and improve their breeding chances. The females try to protect their litters by moving higher in elevation, away from dangerous adolescent males, but also away from plentiful whitetail deer and into terrain occupied by less abundant prey such as mule deer, bighorn sheep and woodland caribou. Thus marginal game populations suffer.


Research methods included capturing cougars with hounds and attaching collars with global positioning system receivers and radio transmitters. The collars reported the cougars’ locations six times a day, allowing researchers to generate valuable data on cougar migration, reproduction, prey and mortality.

 

[huntnphool]

I can't make up my mind which is more comical, the conclusion this nut job came up with or the fact that our WDFW dept. actually agrees with it.

This states F&W dept has got to be the laughing stock of the country.

[MtnMuley]

I can't make up my mind which is more comical, the conclusion this nut job came up with or the fact that our WDFW dept. actually agrees with it.

This states F&W dept has got to be the laughing stock of the country.

......at our expense.

[denali]

woodland caribou ....really?? there are 30-50 that reside part time in a small fraction of the state. and with wolves in the area they have been written off anyway, the fact that they were brought up makes me question any thing else in the study 

WDFW better be careful many of the projects that they are concerned with require landowner cooperation and buy-in, invasive species, riparian restoration, fish habitat , wildlife habitat, public access, noxious weeds  and many others, their continued cooperation is going to difficult to get if the dept's attitude is a "shrug of the shoulders, sucks to be you attitude" 

this situation going forward is not going to be good for anybody, landowners trying to protect their property, hunter access (unless your hunting predators) or the credibility of WDFW.

[jackmaster]

man that W S U proffessor just wants to make it where we cant hunt cats, what *censored*, he must think we are all dumb as stumps

[WSU]

The logic does seem flawed.  Those adolescent males are going to be somewhere whether we kill the toms or not.  It isn't like not killing the Toms will make those younger males disappear?

Sounds to me like we should harvest more females....

[predatorpro]

since when has there been less cougars all of a sudden? it seems more and more people are getting them on trail cams and having them in areas they normally wouldnt be, i know in alot of areas that residents are seeing more all the time and they are only getting more use to being so close to humans...or am i missing the point of this?

[RadSav]

"WSU’s Rob Wielgus, director of the Large Carnivore Conservation Lab, lead the population viability analysis that was used in the Washington Wolf Conservation and Management Plan." - WSU

More details on the cougar study.
http://wsm.wsu.edu/s/index.php?id=592

[CAMPMEAT]

Where do these wingnuts come from

[Kola16]

Where do these wingnuts come from

Seattle!

[Sportfury]

This story blows my mind. I bet the study leader and his ilk have never hunted a day in their life. I have to wonder how much wolf money helped to fund these nuts.

[RadSav]

If I read things right what they are really trying to tell us is we need to kill more women and children and let the dominant males live.  Might we see special "Kitten Permits" in our future.    Sounds to me that is what the "science" is telling us.

Sounds like a study done years ago in PA where they suggested the game department drop deer birth control from helicopters

[CAMPMEAT]

Where do these wingnuts come from

Seattle!

We've got more cats in Ferry County than anyplace in Washington State I bet.......

[HUNTINCOUPLE]

Last i heard dominant males kill off there own kind and kin! More so than we hunters kill of them. This report doesn't make sense??

[wraithen]

This report makes perfect sense. There's no problem with wolves in the urban environment so that means we need to start hitting them harder right? Come to think of it, when's the last time an owl attacked anyone? Let's start hammering them too!