Not only are the Washington kitty lovers trying to stop mountain lion hunting in Montana, they are attempting to foist their idiotic ideas on other states. Here is a story from the Rapid City Journal about the same folks holding meetings in South Dakota:
Researchers: Cougar population is self-regulating despite hunting
By Scott Aust, Journal staff | Sunday, December 07, 2008
Two wildlife scientists who have studied mountain lions in Washington state shared their research Saturday as part of a free seminar at The Journey Museum, sponsored by the Black Hills Mountain Lion Foundation.
While interaction with humans is increasing because of human encroachment into habitat, lion attacks on humans remain extremely rare, said Brian Kertson, who is working on a doctorate at the University of Washington.
"You are more likely to die from a vending machine falling over and crushing you than being attacked by a cougar," he said, noting that two people per year die in vending machine accidents, but fatal cougar attacks are less than one per year.
Kertson is engaged in an eight-year study of factors that lead to interaction between cougars and people in the urban-wildland interface near Seattle.
Counting mountain lions is notoriously difficult, but the state of Washington estimates the population of the big cats is somewhere between 2,400 and 4,000 animals, he said.
Hillary Cooley studied the impact of hunting on mountain lion populations in two regions of the state of Washington.
Kertson uses global positioning system radio collars, ground-based tracking and spatial models to examine the potential influences of cougar demographics and landscape features on cougar-human interaction in the forests, foothills, mountains and suburban communities of western Washington.
Kertson has captured and collared nearly 40 cats and has performed extensive ground tracking, records landscape attributes and also investigates reports of cougar sightings and interactions with humans.
Landscape conducive to lion habitat includes locations with good cover, areas along waterways and "edge" areas where different types of landscapes meet.
Kertson said 81 percent of the cats he studied interacted with humans by entering urban areas along the edge of the interface with wildland areas, but few were ever seen or reported by people. He said none of the cats were exclusively urban, meaning they wandered in searching for food and wandered out again.
"It just happened that the human environment is part of their home range," he said. "There's very little per-capita interaction. It's very rare for a sighting to escalate into anything more. Simply seeing a cat doesn't necessarily mean a conflict is coming."
Kertson said that in many instances, if he wouldn't have had a GPS collar on a cat he never would have known it was nearby while tracking near urban areas.
Cooley has been studying cougars for seven years and received her doctorate from Washington State University in September. Her research investigated the effects of hunting on cougar population demography in Washington State.
Cooley studied the impact of hunting in two of the nine cougar management areas in Washington. One, in Cle Elum, in the central-west central part of the state, experienced light hunting over the past six years, and the second, near Kettle Falls in the northeastern region of the state, experienced heavy hunting as part of an effort to reduce lion populations.
Cooley's team tracked and collared numerous cats and also recorded the mortality of both collared and uncollared lions in the study area. Her study indicated that lion population in the lightly hunted area did not grow as much as expected, and the numbers in the heavily hunted area did not decrease as much as predicted, largely because of the influence of immigration and emigration. Lions from one area move into other areas in search of food or to find mates.
"What it says to me is cougars effectively regulate themselves though immigration and emigration," she said.
As a result, Cooley believes states such as South Dakota should account for open population dynamics when designing management plans.
Sharon Seneczko, founder of the local lion foundation, said she feels blessed to have so much wildlife in the Black Hills, including mountain lions.
"Managing mountain lions in a human-dominated landscape certainly has its challenges," she said. "Through research, we know the details surrounding mountain lions are extremely complex, and management is influenced by many things, including politics, sociology, science and, hopefully, some ethical considerations."
The 150 member, nonprofit Black Hills Mountain Lion Foundation seeks to educate the public about mountain lions, support research, increase public tolerance for lions and protect lion habitat. Members have lobbied the state Legislature to change or abolish the state's lion hunting season.
Contact Scott Aust at 394-8415 or
[email protected]..
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2008/12/07/news/local/doc493b4a801d5f1087638138.txt
