Visit: PROTECT NEW MEXICO'S COUGARS
Proposed Rules Will Wipe Out N.M.'s Cougars
By Wendy Keefover-Ring
WildEarth Guardians
The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish wants to wage war on the state's cougars, but that will not make people or livestock safer, nor create more deer, elk or bighorn sheep for hunters. The government's proposal focuses heavily on female cougars, and that will mean it will more quickly wipe out these majestic cats.
As part of a perfect storm for cougars, Game and Fish also seeks to limit the public's right to object by restricting access to the rule-making process.
Right now, the public can weigh in on cougar-kill quotas every two years. But Game and Fish wants to move to a fouryear, decision-making cycle that would effectively cut the public and even the Game Commission - the rule-making body that oversees the agency - out of the process.
In comparison, most, if not all, Western states review cougar quotas annually. New Mexico's cougars could very well be wiped out before our right to object comes around again.
Game and Fish's 2010 proposals represent a radical departure from years of prudent stewardship encouraged by the Gov. Bill Richardson administration.
Game and Fish disposed of a comprehensive 10-year, peer-reviewed study on cougars, conducted in New Mexico and authored by Kenneth Logan and Linda Sweanor and hailed by U.S. conservation biologists as a seminal work. This $1 million study, paid for by New Mexicans, disappointed the agency because its data suggested that the cougar population was far lower than what was expedient for the agency.
Undaunted, in 2010 Game and Fish threw out the Logan and Sweanor study and now relies on a student's unfinished, unpublished and unavailable four-year study that the agency claims determines that the population is significantly larger than Logan and Sweanor had estimated. On top of that, Game and Fish assessed a high level of kill - by using a Wyoming study that it has grossly misinterpreted.
Combined, these unscienti f ic approaches provided Game and Fish with the "basis" for its extreme quota of 1,180 cougars per year, a 140 percent increase from the 490 figure used in 2008.
Killing females particularly harms the population because they provide the resiliency needed to overcome overhunting. Further, with the death of mother cats, dependent kittens will likely suffer starvation and death after orphaning.
To protect breeding females, in 2008 the New Mexico Game Commission unanimously approved measures to protect mothers and their kittens while continuing to allow limited sport hunting. The commission narrowed the total number of females that could be killed in each hunting zone, and it ordered an online education program that teaches hunters to differentiate between the male and female cats.
But now Game and Fish wants to kill over 457 females annually, an astonishing 263 percent increase over the 2008 level of 126.
Intuitively, it might seem like killing cougars would protect human safety, but there is no evidence that shows that sport hunting cougars makes people safer, according to "Cougar Management Guidelines" - a publication authored by 13 cougar biologists and reviewed by 30 others. In fact, abundant research indicates the exact opposite is true. By overhunting a cougar population, the age structure changes to one that is younger and more socially unstable. In other words, killing cougars might actually increase the number of harmful encounters between cougars, humans and even livestock.
A far more prudent way to protect people and livestock is through education. Recreationists and those who live in cougar country can take common sense precautions while outside, such as traveling in groups, walking with young children in hand and keeping dogs on leashes. Furthermore, livestock growers can use non-lethal means to protect livestock from cougar attacks.
Instead of waging war on cougars, we call upon the Game Commission to reject Game and Fish's radical quota proposal and keep it at the 2008 level of 490; continue the biennial review process; make the online hunter education program mandatory to protect breeding females and kittens. We call upon Game and Fish to ramp up its nascent but promising Cougar Smart New Mexico program that promotes human-cougar coexistence.
The vast majority of New Mexicans appreciate the beauty, majesty and charisma of cougars. New Mexican voters know that cougars are an important component of our natural heritage. In fact, New Mexican wildlife watchers far exceed other forms of wildlife recreation, including hunting.
Cougars must be preserved for future generations and not squandered for short-sighted, ill purpose.
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