Wyoming's Game and Fish Commission has proven itself to be a very astute political body. And this week's Solomon-like decision reeks from all the spin doctor rhetoric put forth to disguise the fact that once again too many lions will be killed to placate a small special interest group.

Earlier this year, a small group of private landowners from Crook County, the small sliver of Black Hills residing within Wyoming's borders complained that they were not making enough money off the lion-hunting trade. It seems that hunters on public lands were reaching (and exceeding) the state's exorbitant mortality quota for the region and closing down the hunting season long before the 212 day hunting time-limit had expired.

Claiming that it was being responsive to public concern, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) decided to conduct its 3-year review of lion-hunting quotas a year earlier than scheduled, and then proposed to solve the problem by creating a new Hunt Area with unlimited lion mortality, just so those same landowners could get their "fair" share of the potential financial bounty (a single guided lion hunt can bring in over $5,000). 

 

But the proposed plan's announcement of unlimited lion hunting created public outrage. Mountain lions from that section of Wyoming, coupled with their brethren in South Dakota, have proven to be the primary source for the resettlement of the Midwest by the species. And experts were pointing out that current hunting policies in the Black Hills were hindering that resettlement and proposed mortality increases -- such as Wyoming's -- could even lead to the extirpation of Puma concolor in the source region.

With complaints rolling in from all over the country, what could the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission do?  It wanted to go along with the Department's proposal; after all the parties supporting the changes are their constituents and friends. But it also didn't wish to reveal it isn't using the best scientific data available to make critical wildlife management decisions.

So, making logical sounding statements such as "What we've done with that quota should meet the needs of the people there but also show that we are responsibly managing our resources," the Commission decided instead to provide the new Hunt Area (32) with an initial mortality quota of "only" 25 lions. Very Responsible -- HA!

Let's look at the facts:   

 

WGFD's large carnivore biologist Dan Thompson possibly summed up the Commission's decision best when he said that he "doesn't know if a quota of 25 will last the season or fill before March 31, but it will cut the population."

 

California Assembly Bill 1784 - authorizing scientific humane research on mountain lions - passed the legislature and is now sitting on Governor Brown's desk waiting to be signed.  

 

AB 1784 was introduced by Assembly Member Bill Monning and is the culmination of almost a year and a half's work on the part of the Mountain Lion Foundation to restore lion research after the California Department of Fish and Game suddenly decided at the beginning of 2011 that there was no legal statute allowing them to authorize such work.

These crucial research projects are helping us better understand the health of the species and both identify and protect critical wildlife corridors.