South Dakota. High demand, low harvest has advocates taking notice
Mountain lions face some very unique challenges in South Dakota. Politically there is a strong unscientific push to basically remove as many cougars as possible, especially from the areas through which dispersal might naturally take place. There is also a relative lack of public land where lions might be protected if there was an intelligent attitude towards them. Livestock growers do benefit from maintaining an enhanced environment and even though it can mean changing human behavior, there are ways to reduce conflict. Whether people are willing to live in harmony with the landscape or whether they seek dominion and are not willing to accommodate small inconveniences is the question that must be asked. Putting the kind of pressure that has been directed at the fairly new mountain lion population of the Black Hills in the name of recreation brings negative attention to this great state–where the politics could be perceived as more reminiscent of ‘Deadwood’ than of the 21st century
http://www.kotatv.com/news/south-dakota-news/mountain-lion-harvest-down-from-previous-years/32158470
A world without animals is like music without a melody…
We hear news of animals facing challenges and even extinction in most news cycles. Often the animals who seem to be most vulnerable to the consequences of human expansion and acquisition are those animals we might think of as ‘strong’ or even ‘fierce’. Large cats, elephants, rhinos and polar bears…all titans in their own way yet all in peril because our misplaced need and greed.
Do we really want our children to inherit a broken planet? Please celebrate and value the LIVES of animals with us!
http://dailysciencejournal.com/polar-bears-may-starve-due-to-effects-of-climate-change/22061/
Conflict prevention is the way forward if co-existence is to be possible.
Producers’ lives demand one risk management decision after another. They are experts and willingly assess possibilities for loss in their quest to provide food for a nation.
The contingencies they address range from events as vast as the weather to the tiny bacteria that could negatively impact their livelihood in the same grand scale.
Irrigation, vaccination, antibiotics, noxious vegetation removal and many other methods of husbandry are part of everyday life for farmers and ranchers in the 21st century. One more item needs to be added to that list and that is ‘conflict prevention’. As humans claim more and more wildland as their own, we encroach on the needs of our native flora and fauna. We develop, fragment and alter the very spaces needed for enhanced biodiversity. Our gain is indeed our loss!
Preventing conflict with wildlife is kind of the natural seatbelt we can choose to use. Non-lethal deterrents-like the seatbelt-do not provide 100% guarantee, but if you get into an unexpected situation, they are the best chance you have. We need to find a way to help make non-lethal deterrents as second nature as the seatbelt-not just something you grab when you think there might be a wreck. How this can be done is an issue that all stakeholders can work on together, whether it is by providing incentives to producers, tax relief for prevention equipment, or compensation if it fails. We can all be part of the solution and when we peel back the negative layers that line the reactive attitudes towards predators, we will remove yet another excuse for exploiting and destroying them.
Cougars in Utah
Utah has long been a state immersed in its desire to be unique, politically and culturally. The resulting utilitarian doctrines have not had good consequences for predators. Stepping back a couple of centuries, Utah re-introduced the coyote bounty; wolves are targeted for removal even before they have returned, and mountain lions are the unseen scapegoat for livestock conflict and struggling ungulate populations.
Even when science supports the compensatory mechanism of predator prey relationships, Utah still pursues the ‘guilty until proven innocent’ approach to carnivore management.
It is nice to know that there are scientific references in Utah that allude to the tough lives that cougars must endure, their elusiveness and extremely infrequent interactions with humans. Utah is also trying to include non-consumptive interests by inviting advocates on to their Cougar Advisory Board. In a state that has one of the most regressive attitudes towards large carnivores, this article and the inclusion of those who don’t regard mountain lions as ‘criminal’ animals are hopeful signs.