We are against the sport hunting of cougars and other large carnivores. Here is why:
The Cougar Fund was founded because of many people’s frustration with traditional cougar management practices by state game agencies—sport-hunting cougars and the proposed increases in kill quotas with no scientific reasoning—and more specifically, the real possibility that the most-watched family of wild cougars in history could be killed.
On Valentine’s Day 1999, a mother cougar and her three kittens took up residence in a cave on Miller Butte on the National Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. By the Refuge’s estimate at least fifteen thousand people came specifically to observe and experience this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Shortly after this, the state game agency more than doubled the kill quota for cougars in the hunt area that included the home range of the Miller Butte family.
Nearly half of all cougars killed are females; a female cougar is either pregnant or has dependent young for approximately 75% of her life. If the mother is shot and killed, the orphaned kittens may starve to death or be killed by other predators. Oftentimes the orphans that do survive may seek out easier prey, such as pets.
Game agencies control the management of America’s most precious resource—its wildlife. However, current management has become less about conservation and more about hunting. According to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s Hunter Education Course, only 10% of Americans hunt, another 10% are actively against it, and a whopping 80% are unaware of how unnecessary and cruel, and how geared to minority demand, sport hunting is.
Nevertheless, in an attempt to work with all stakeholders, The Cougar Fund chose not to take an anti-cougar-hunting stance during our first decade of working to protect mountain lions. For years we tried to work with game agencies, in most cases only to have them use their own version of science to simply maintain a population that will continue to allow them to provide “recreational opportunities” for their constituents. To this end they also REMOVED protective measures for females from their management guidelines. This allowed more cougars to be killed and more kittens to be orphaned, it disregarded the importance of an apex species in the ecosystem, and ignored the will of the vast majority of stakeholders.
We are a politically diverse board and staff with a single viewpoint: we firmly believe that sport-hunting cougars has no place in their management. The latest research supports this position– there is no biological rationale for sport-hunting this species, no environmental benefit, it does not increase ungulate populations, and it does not reduce the risk of human-cougar encounters. In fact, studies have shown that hunting leads to an increase in young males who are the most “problematic” individuals. Only in the rare, unlikely, and imminent threat to humans, livestock, or pets should a cougar be removed. Morally and ethically, killing cougars for “sport” is indefensible.
“The time has come for all Americans to reevaluate our attitudes and our tolerance toward not only the ghost cat but all predators on the landscape.”
-article from The Cougar Fund Official Newsletter, Spring 2012 Issue