With your inside knowledge and experience what are your opinions on lion seasons and quotas? What do you believe our lion density is at? Are you advocating for increased harvest and extended seasons? I couldn't begin to guess what lion densities are. That would take a pretty big research effort. We are not advocating for or against any changes to the hunting season. That is up to the public and WDFW to figure out and not the intent of our project
You guys removed about 70 lions last year for the wdfw and that's not all of the cats that were removed from the sounds of it. If this isnt evidence and proof that we have a big problem with lion populations what will prove that? This might be more of a statement than a question. Again, I'm not in a position to make a determination on the population. Depredations have been increasing for a couple years.
Do you feel if wdfw was doing their job at managing predators and ungulates we would be in a position for the need to remove 70 plus lions a year? See above.
What is the goal of your study? To learn about cougar behavioral response to pursuit by hounds/people
What kind of results do you expect? EARLY results show an increase in flight initiation and an increase in flight distance. So, after being treed by dogs/handled, the cougars seem to be mobilizing more quickly to the sound of human voice and moving further after hearing it.
What kind of data do you have to compare your results to? Not much. A project in CO did some aversive conditioning work, but not with the same technique or technology. There are no useful published cougar flight-initiation-distance studies
What will be done with these results to help our problem with over population of lions and declining ungulate herds? Probably nothing. This is just a research project to answer a couple specific questions. It would be up to the state to determine harvest levels
Is this study supposed to be a baseline to help establish a pursuit season? This study is only to provide some insight into how a cat behaves/responds after hazing, when the same stimuli (human voices) reappears on the landscape. it would be up to WDFW to make any management decisions based on the data.
If harassing lions keeps them from killing goats is it a possibility the wdfw will be spending money every year to harass all the lions in the state? I can see it being like the range rider situation. Instead of actually managing wildlife we will just throw more money at a problem that doesn't actually do much good in the big picture.
Seems obvious and clear to me that having a hound season greatly decreases the chances of depredations or an attack on a person. I don't have numbers on hand but I would imagine a state like Idaho or Montana doesn't remove anywhere close to 70 lions statewide in a year let alone in a select few counties.
If it was possible would you support the reversal of the hound hunting ban? Yes
