Let’s dispel fears over new mountain lion hunting rules

I was recently under a sycamore tree waiting for a female mountain lion to regain her mobility, having just deployed a tracking collar on her a short time earlier.

I have tracked mountain lions professionally for 15 years in seven states and four countries. This is all that I do. Mountain lions fascinate me, and working with them is an unrivaled challenge.

While watching this lion recover, I thought about some recent editorials about mountain lion management. I thought about how complicated predator ecology is. Yet it amazes me that some special interest groups believe that anyone can determine how things work and what to do.

The piece, “New Hunting Rules Imperil Too Many Female Cougars,” (March 4) begs the question, what is “too many?” If you spend too much money, your bank account will eventually go to zero. Does the author want readers to believe new rules that were adopted April 1 will result in the mountain lion population going to zero?

Is this a truly a plausible consequence of the rule changes? No.

The Arizona Game and Fish Department had been using the guideline that if 25% of the harvest in a management zone is adult female, defined as 3 years and older or with evidence of reproduction, then the zone’s harvest threshold will be reduced in the future.

The new guideline adds another parameter that can be considered in order to adjust harvest thresholds. It limits the harvesting of female lions (of any age) to no more than 50% of the total harvest in that zone.

So, adjusting thresholds can be predicated not just on the time-consuming age determination, but also on the sex of the lion, a characteristic that is readily observable when the harvested animal is inspected by a department biologist.

This allows wildlife managers to be more responsive and keep the number of females harvested in check. This is not a strategy to harvest more females from the population.

The author errantly states that each zone has a different quota based on how many “they” want to remove. The threshold is not the number of animals the department wants to remove, but rather the number of animals that can be removed from the population while ensuring a continued sustainable population of mountain lions in that zone.

The author takes issue with the department for having used 3 years of age to define adult females, rather than 2.

Studies across the West indicate lion cubs normally leave their mothers at about 13 months, with a range between 9 and 16 months. The age of first breeding was 29 months and first litters at 32 months. In the real world, there are few females reproducing at 2 years, while almost all have reproduced by age 3.

The commonsense approach is to use the 3-year-old mark and evidence of reproduction. Seven other states use 3 years old, while only one uses 2 years old (one other relies on evidence of reproduction of the harvested animals).

Are the professionals doing it right? Yes. From settlement days until the early 1970s, mountain lions were killed mercilessly for the protection of livestock and game species. By the 1970s, the population in Arizona was near its low.

The Game and Fish Department then added protection for mountain lions by classifying them as a big-game species and establishing hunting seasons, bag limits, and allowable methods of take.

The increase in mountain lions since then is an accepted fact by wildlife biologists across the Western states. That mountain lions are now occupying areas of Arizona where they hadn’t for decades is a testament to their general increase.

If you’re a mountain lion enthusiast, it’s a great time to be in Arizona. Thanks to the management by wildlife professionals, I know that my children will be able to enjoy them as well.