WDFW needs to look at the results of Oregon Cougar Management

[bearpaw]

WDFW needs to look at the results of Oregon Cougar Management

Other states are taking action to improve hunting!

[bearpaw]

Oregon season runs all year long and Oregon is taking a much larger number of cougar than Washington!

[bearpaw]

Washington season is much shorter and Washington is allowing far fewer cougar to be taken in each zone. Maximum of 970 cougar can be taken in Oregon. Maximum of 261 cougar can be taken in Washington. Oregon zones with targeted cougar removal in addition to regular season harvest are showing significant growth of elk and mule deer herds.

[j_h_nimrod]

Go figure, a state that manages their game (at least one species) better than WA

[JLS]

Does Oregon allow hound hunting and/or trapping?

[jrebel]

Wish out season was open last week....would probably have a huge cat and a huge taxidermy bill.      Now I won't see another cougar for 39 years. 

[JLS]

Interesting for sure.

Looks like OR wants to harvest about 16% of it's population annually (based on the estimates given) vs. WA at 13%.

Curious as to a few variables:

What were the antlerless seasons prior to and after the cougar reductions?
What were the environmental conditions prior to and after the reductions?
What time frame were the reductions done over, and how often were they/are they to be repeated?

[Ricochet]

Does Oregon allow hound hunting and/or trapping?

No to both. 

[JLS]

Does Oregon allow hound hunting and/or trapping?

No to both.

Are quotas routinely filled?

[bearpaw]

Does Oregon allow hound hunting and/or trapping?

No to both.

Are quotas routinely filled?

In WA some are filled, some are not, but a year round season would likely cause more quotas to be filled.

In Oregon I don't know how many quotas are filled, it may say, I didn't notice. I did see where they said that the targeted cougar removals are in addition  to hunting season harvest. They removed a large number of cats in addition to the hunting harvest to increase the elk population. It says elk calf survival has doubled and herds have increased!

Of course most of us already know this is how it works, but agencies don't seem to possess that knowledge.

[mfswallace]

Interesting for sure.

Looks like OR wants to harvest about 16% of it's population annually (based on the estimates given) vs. WA at 13%.

While that doesn't look significant at 3% difference you must take into account the numbers WDFraud and Wolves puts out for cougar populations, they are more than likely double their estimates... Just like wolves and bear estimates

[JLS]

Looks like OR doesn't even come close to filling quotas.  They do harvest about 2x the cats that WA does.  177 to 385 in 2014/15 and 202 to 409 in 2015/16.

[bearpaw]

Looks like OR doesn't even come close to filling quotas.  They do harvest about 2x the cats that WA does.  177 to 385 in 2014/15 and 202 to 409 in 2015/16.

Without hounds there will be more limitations on how many cats hunters take. I suspect they are using hounds for the targeted removals where they are more significantly reducing the cougar population.

[JimmyHoffa]

Washington seems like they are more interested in reducing the hunter and fisherman numbers.

[JLS]

Washington seems like they are more interested in reducing the hunter and fisherman numbers.

Seems that way at times, doesn't it?

[csaaphill]

Cougar season is year around in Oregon too.
Jan 1st - Dec 31st too.

[finnman]

The Oregon cougar plan also used the government hunters from the Dept. of Agriculture. They went to several private ranches and ran cats with the hounds and killed many cougars all over the Ukiah and Heppner units. A friend of mine is an outfitter in the Ukiah unit and he has seen drastic improvements in elk numbers. On one of his ranches alone they killed 12 cats. That was just one of several of his ranch properties. The numbers of cats killed was staggering, It was hard to believe the numbers.

[Special T]

The Oregon cougar plan also used the government hunters from the Dept. of Agriculture. They went to several private ranches and ran cats with the hounds and killed many cougars all over the Ukiah and Heppner units. A friend of mine is an outfitter in the Ukiah unit and he has seen drastic improvements in elk numbers. On one of his ranches alone they killed 12 cats. That was just one of several of his ranch properties. The numbers of cats killed was staggering, It was hard to believe the numbers.

No its actually  not.  How long have they hamstrung everyone?

[Kit Carson]

I hope WDFW allows cougar trapping at some point...

[BENCHLEG]

Oregon non resident tag $15.50.   Washington $222.00. Way more incentive to buy one in there state. 

[Bango skank]

Oregon non resident tag $15.50.   Washington $222.00. Way more incentive to buy one in there state. 

Wow, so their non resident tag is cheaper than our resident tag.  Stupid wdfw.  Maybe if they werent blowing so much money on this whole wolf b.s. they wouldnt have to charge us so much for everything

[bearpaw]

Our Current State of Affairs
WDFW has swallowed the Weilgus recommendation for cougar management. They don't want to kill many cougar, they think they will self regulate, that is true, they will self regulate, but it will be at a high population level that has significant impacts on our state.

[buglebrush]

I have said this many times.  WDFW has their head in the sand on predators.  Either they are plain stupid or they just don't care about hunters.  Cue the passionate defenders of WDFW who will say oh it's an apples to oranges thing.  No it really isn't.  If you truly care about the future of big game hunting and increasing hunter opportunity you must aggressively manage predators.  Period.

[jasnt]

Our cougar quotas are a joke, at least in my areas(NE)!  I see multiple cats every year and find a ton of sign! From my observations we have a lot of territory over lap or small territory's

[huntnphool]

 Doesn't look as though Oregon paid too much attention to WDFW's quack cougar expert at WSU.

[MtnMuley]

Does Oregon allow hound hunting and/or trapping?

No to both.

You  can run hounds for bobcats in Oregon. Limit 5.

[UrbanTrapper]

I heard the Muckleshoot Tribe in Washington State also schwacked their cougars recently and their deer and elk herds recovered too.