Outcry over cougar hunt

Press, 19 February 1987, Page 20

Outcry over cougar hunt

From John N. Hutchison in San Francisco

California’s Fish and Game Department has proposed that 210 mountain lions be shot because the estimated 5100 roaming this state are too many. The proposal has been hotly disputed. It has been illegal to hunt the wild cats, also called cougars, pumas or catamounts, since 1972 in California, except when they were a direct threat to people or domestic animals. Now, the state officials say, the cougar population, once endangered, has increased to the point at which it should be controlled.

An adult cougar can kill a deer, pig, calf or sheep, and there were two instances last year, considered very unusual, in

which children were attacked in a wilderness park in southern California, resulting in the closure of the area to campers. Six marauding cougars were killed in ranch country in 1984. A cougar can weigh as much as 80kg, measure 70cm, in height at the shoulder, and reach a length, from nose to tail-tip, of two metres. They are solitary and covert, avoiding human beings and difficult to stalk.

The announced intention to hold public hearings on the department’s proposal to issue permits to a limited number of trophy hunters instantly drew sharp protest from wildlife protectors, who said the state

overestimates the number of cougars. A spokesman for the Mountain Lion Coalition said that scarcity of prey naturally limits the increase of the cats.

"This is a mean-spirited move,” San Francisco’s largest newspaper said in a leader. “Nature is a notably efficient regulator. We trust that Fish and Game will back away.”

Letter writers also rose at once to defend the cats. One wrote, “Hunters would be allowed to kill a valued predator that can help cull the destructive wild boar population.” Feral pigs have become a serious problem in pastureland as near as 32km from downtown San Francisco.