Comments on Wyoming's Mountain Lion Season due by 6/7/13

 Deadline for commenting on Wyoming's  Mountain lion seasons (a  3 year season for 2013-2016)  is 5:00 PM Mtn Time - Friday 6/7/13 

 

The deadline to comment on Wyoming's Wolf Season is June 12th

 Scroll down for instructions on how to comment.

 

Why should folks in Black Hills area, care about Wyoming's hunt? 

 

About 2/5 of the conifer covered area in the Black Hills/Bear Lodge area is in Wyoming.  In 2012-13 season half the lions killed (61 or 62 lions) were killed in Wyoming and half  (61 lions) in SD.  Last summer Wyoming had increased its quota from 40 to 61 for 2012-13 season. Wyoming sets its seasons normally for three years, thus hunters will be "harvesting" 61 lions out of the Black Hills/Bear Lodge for the next 3 years.  With addition of last year, this will be 4 years of a 61 lion harvest, that will take cumulatively 244 lions in 4 years. In 2012 SDGFP estimated the total population of lions in the SD side as 300 (all ages). SD hunters could not deliver the planned harvest of 100 lions, which was based on that population estimate.  Wyoming does not do population estimates, just trend estimates.  If we assume SD's 2012 lion estimate was correct and Wyoming had two thirds of the SD population in 2012 (we then assume 200 lions all ages existed in fall of 2012 in Wyoming before 2012 hunt and 14% new lions grow up per year), how will they support such an aggressive harvest for 4 years, except by bleeding lions from other source areas?  We provide you a link to You-tube video on Robert Wielgus' review of Washington States research which challenges traditional assumptions that sport hunting of lions reduces conflicts with people, livestock, pets, wildlife because it shifts the sex/age structure. (Scroll down for link to Wielgus)

 

        Wyoming starts its season in the fall before SD does. Lions have no clue of where the state boundaries are and have large territories and some may reside in both states.  Wyoming hunters beat SD hunters to some of the Black Hills lions. SD did not meet its 2013 quota of 100 lions. The two states cumulatively in 2011-2012 seasons "harvested" 115 lions in the Black Hills/Bear Lodge area of both states. In 2012-2013 the two states hunters cumulatively "harvested" 122 lions in Black Hills/Bear Lodge.  Wyomingalso provides for an aggressive hunt in the prairie west of the Black Hills, with an unlimited quota; 8 were killed in 2012-13. Both SD and Wyoming are managing the Black Hills as a "sink" and have unlimited kill zones in the prairie surrounding the Hills.  

 

 Focusing just on SD , is looking at half the picture for the Black Hills. It ignores the potential source population in Montana for Black Hills/Bear Lodge and Nebraska for  supply of lions to the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations.  As long as SD manages the Black Hills as sink and manages for obliteration of lions on the prairie, female migrants are less likely to migrate from the Black Hills to the Reservations. 

 

What if you don't live in Wyoming? 48.43 % of Wyoming is federally owned land.  You, as a federal tax payer, are a significant land owner in Wyoming.  The US Forest Service and BLM are multiple use agencies.  The Forest Service must manage for sustainable populations of wildlife.  If you live in the Black Hills, we suggest you object to the Black Hills Wyoming quota as excessive.

 

Below we give the details on the state agencies/formal commenting and links to the Cougar Fund and Mountain Lion Foundation, which have more information on each state.  The Cougar Fund has specific talking points and/or sample letters for communications with each state.  Mountain Lion Foundation provides in depth background information as of 2012 (not updated yet in 2013). Both these cougar-focused organizations have web resources divided by states.  We recommend studying both resources, they provide complementary information.  Cougar Fund provides some sample letters and talking points. The Cougar Rewilding Foundation and the Cougar Network (other cougar organizations) have generic references on their web sites, that are not divided by states.

 

If you want copies of PHAS comments or more information on the issue contact me Nancy Hilding 605-787-6779 or Helen McGinnis at 304-227-4166,

 

Comment Deadline:

June 7,  5:00PM

Commission Hearing:
July 9-10 - Saratoga

 

Emails to Wyoming Game and Fish Director and Commissioners:
Sheridan Todd
Executive Assistant/Office of the Director
(307)777-4632
sheridan.todd@wyo.gov

The subject line should read,

"For Director and Commissioners: Comments on Draft Cougar Hunt Regulations."

WGFD Director Scott Talbott
(307)777-4600
5400 Bishop Blvd
Cheyenne, WY 82006

 

For a copy of draft regulations visit.

http://www.cougarfund.org/downloads/cougarfund_75.pdf

 

 

COUGAR FUND STATE ALERT PAGE

 

Please visit Cougar Fund's web page at "Take Action"

 

http://www.cougarfund.org/takeaction/wyomingaction/

 

There are 4 menu "tags" to click on: Overview, Facts,  Speak Out, Resources.  You need to visit all 4 tags for each state to get the story for each state.

 

There are instructions on how to comment and also some talking points suggested by Cougar Fund and a sample letter, as well as links to references provided by state such as their recent report/update on the state's lion population, the proposed regulation itself and the 2006 mountain lion plan for the state.

 

 MOUNTAIN LION FOUNDATION'S STATE WEB PAGE

 Visit this web page and click on the flag for the state you wish to learn about.

 MLF has not updated its Wyoming page since last year, but the season for the Black Hills Area has the same quota, except a clarification of rule text for second reduced license for area 24 (prairie unit  mostly between Big Horns and Black Hills), which includes Elk Mountain southeast of Newcastle.  You may need a modern web browser software to access pages (older browser may not work).

 

http://mountainlion.org/

 

http://www.mountainlion.org/us/-us-portal.asp

 

http://www.mountainlion.org/us/wy/-wy-portal.asp

 

If you combine both CF & MLF web link sites for any state in question, you will learn a lot.  Once again the web sites of these organizations represent the opinions of each organization, and not necessarily those of all cougar advocates.

We suggest all cougar advocates watch the video by Robert Wielgus on Washington State Research:  Research in Washington state over the last 15 year overturns many traditional assumptions about sport hunting of lions and shows that (at least in Washington state environs) aggressive sport hunting of lions does not reduce lion conflicts with people, pets or livestock or even some “at risk” wildlife prey and may increase such conflicts. However remember such conflicts are small in number 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_ZD-PAKhSo

Presented by Washington State University professor of wildlife ecology and Large Carnivore Lab director Dr. Rob Wielgus at the 2012 International Conference of the Wildlife Society. "This presentation offers 15 years of research in 15 minutes," says Dr. Wielgus. Watching this takes 22 minutes.  If you look at the video in the small print below many of the graphs, the PowerPoint lists the research sources, many of which are peer reviewed journals and include "The Journal of Wildlife Management,” "Ecological Applications,”  "Ecology,” "Conservation Biology,”  and "Canadian Journal Of Zoology"

At the end of the video he refers you to Large Carnivore Conservation Lab for more info. and the articles referenced in lecture - rs.wsu.edu/research/Carnivore/

Here is a list of publications by Wielgus and associates, http://www.experts.scival.com/wsu/expertPubs.asp?n=Robert+B+Wielgus&u_id=251