Moderator: South Dakota wants fewer mountain lions in the Black Hills.  A proposed five-year management plan would reduce the estimated  population of mountain lions in the Black Hills by nearly a third, most likely by raising bag limits or making other adjustments to the hunting season.  On today's edition of Dakota Midday, I'll be joined by Jonathan Jenks, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Wildlife and Fishery Sciences at South Dakota State University.  He's an expert on wildlife management and studied mountain lions extensively.

And retired Black Hills veterinarian Tom Huhnerkoch, a long-time critic of hunting season regulations, joins us.  He says there is no justification for lowering the mountain lion population to proposed levels.

State wildlife managers estimated the 2009 population at 250 give or take 10%.  A new five-year management proposal sets a goal of 175 in the Black Hills.  The South Dakota Department of Game, Fish & Parks is accepting public comments through July 26th on its proposal.

I'm joined now by Jonathan Jenks.  He joins us on the phone from Brookings.  Jonathan Jenks, welcome to Dakota Midday.

Jenks:  Hi, Paul.  Thanks for the invitation to talk to you.

Moderator:  Based on the research you've done, what are the benefits of a reduced mountain lion population?

Jenks: Well, the benefits of a reduced population would be an increase in the condition of individuals in the population.  Potentially the benefits for the population would be maybe an increase in the reproduction rate.  We are evaluating that now, as we evaluate the effects of the harvest on the population.  And there would be other benefits as well. 

Moderator:  If our listeners have a comment or question for our guest, 1-800-524-3604 is the number to call.  If you live in the Black Hills particularly, you want to weigh in on this or have a question.  And our email address is midday@sdpb.org.

Dr. Jenks, you been talking a little bit about the research you've done, and what exactly it entails and how you went about.

Jenks:  Well, we've been studying the population since about 1998, and we've had numerous objectives, from estimating population size and distribution of the species in the Black Hills and how the animals leave the Black Hills and looking at which individuals leave.  We've looked at survival of the different age classes and we've looked at genetic diversity in the process of evaluating harvest of the population.

Moderator:  And in order to do the research that you've done, you track these mountain lions by attaching collars?

Jenks:  When we started our research back in the early 1990s, we used what is known as traditional radio telemetry techniques.  You go capture an animal, put a radiocollar on it, and what you have to do is relocate it using an antenna, and because of the movement patterns of mountain lions, we used aerial telemetry by flying once per week to relocate the individuals that were radiocollared.  Over this time period, we've been able to radio collar over 285 mountain lions in the Black Hills.  We've also evaluated condition and prey use via the carcasses of moralities on this population as well.

Moderator:  What do we know?  It sounds as if these extensive studies did not occur until fairly recently, with the last ten or twenty years.  What have we learned that we didn't know before about mountain lions?

Jenks:  When we started our work, we thought that there weren't many mountain lions in the Black Hills.  In fact, the state thought there were 20-25 mountain lions in the Black Hills.  So we thought we were going to have some difficulty learning about the population at low density, and objective was to put about radio collars on about 10 individuals, and we were hoping we could do that.

Luckily, we were able - my graduate students and I - were able to radiocollar 12 individuals during that first study, and what we were able to document is that the population was increasing in size.  Long term research has allowed us to characterize and model that population as it increased and became saturated in the Black Hills, and then after saturation, to determine what the harvest was doing.  So learning about how a mountain lion population grows is unique information.  It's very rare to have that kind of that information because it's difficult to put sort of a fence around a mountain lion population and to be able to know the inner workings at the population level.  The Black Hills allows us to do that just because of the semi-isolated nature of the system.

Moderator:  When you talk about saturation, what does that mean in terms of defining how the Black Hills is saturated with mountain lions?

Jenks:  Well, as a wildlife biologist, we kind of view as where there are what we call density-dependent effects, on other words, the population becomes so dense that there are limitations on that population - food becomes limited, space becomes limited for individuals and that population, so their mortality due to natural causes increases, and that's what we were able to document.  When I say saturation, I define that as when we started seeing starvation among kittens and even subadult individuals in the population.  We saw increased movement or dispersal out of the Black Hills system, especially by females, because generally when mountain lions disperse, subadult males leave the population, and females generally set up their home ranges around their mother's home range.  But when the population becomes saturated, there's not enough space even for females in the population, so some of them leave for parts unknown as well.

Moderator:  Why has it grown in the ways it has? 

Jenks:  Well, we think it grew because we have a really unique situation here because we have multiple prey items.  We've got deer, elk, bighorn sheep, all sorts of things for mountain lions to eat, and when we first started studying the population, most of the individuals that had died from one mortality cause or another and were necropsied, provided some information to us that they were consuming porcupines.  Approximately 60% or more percent of individuals were consuming porcupines.  So we viewed porcupines as the base prey for mountain lions when the population was low.  But as it grew and became saturated, porcupines became rarer.  Because of that, the individuals in the population had to modify their prey use and start consuming other prey animals.

Moderator:  If you have a comment or question for our guest, Jonathan Jenks, who is a distinguished professor,  800-524-3604 is the number to call.  We have a couple of emails coming in.  I'm trying to decipher here this first one.  We want to take as many comments as we possibly can.

Jonathan Jenks, one of the things that people have been critical of is that some say that there is no justification for lowering the mountain lion population that much.  What is your response?

Jenks:  Well, why do you say "that much?"

Moderator:  You say 250 to 175.

Jenks:  That's actually not very much.  The 175 is still a robust population in the Based on our genetic information, it's a diverse population.  Black Hills.  175 vs. 240 is still quite a robust population. 

Moderator:  We have an email from Laura in Vermillion:  She says, "Why do you always say "harvest" the lions instead of killing them?   Corn and soybeans are harvested.  Animals are killed.  They aren't harvested like food crops.  Are you trying to make the killing of an animal less offensive[?] by referring to a 'harvest.'  It's annoying and you should stop the practice." 

Her comments obviously reflect some sensitivity on the part of a certain segment of our listening audience who feel that these animals should not be hunted in the ways they have been since 2005.  What are your thought about that?

Jenks:  Well, I'd say that it's a controversial species because of the individuals who feel associated with the critter.  I talk to people throughout the state--those that are hunters who really interested in harvesting mountain lions and those who are completely against it, and I'd say there are all sort of opinions. 

The reason I use harvest is that it's just standard field use of the term in the circles I run in as far as the biologists [I associate with].  Harvest is one way of manipulating a population.

Moderator:  We have Eric on the line.  He is calling from the middle of South Dakota.  He said he had to pull over to get on the air with us.  So glad you did that, Eric. 

Eric:  Hi, how are you?

Moderator:  Good.  Thank you for being safe.  Go ahead with your comment or question for Dr. Jenks.

Eric:  Hi, Jonathan.  I'm from central North Dakota just north of Bismarck.  A little town called Washburn.  In recent years, there's been more and more sightings of mountain lions.  Hunters are seeing them.  Everyone is talking about how the population might be pushed [out of the Black Hills] and pushed that far north.   That somehow our purported increase in population may be due to overpopulation in [unclear].

Jenks:  Well, they'll disperse quite a ways, in fact the furthest individual that we radiocollared and were able to find out where it went about 666 miles, so we know that they'll go a long ways.  We know that, as far as our genetic evaluation of the Black Hills population, North Dakota Game & Fish provided samples for analysis from the Badlands region of the state, and even a few of those individuals from the central region of North Dakota actually are linked to the Black Hills population.  And we know that some of our radiocollared individuals went up through North Dakota and went as far as Canada.  In fact, one went as far as Saskatoon.  One went to northern Minnesota.  The northern Minnesota animal was tracking across North Dakota.

Eric:  That's, interesting, there's lots of controversy about those sightings.  They thought that Parks and game wardens were releasing these things [hard to hear what he said after that].  

Jenks:  Well, I'd be happy to comment on the release of individuals after working with the number that we have.  It's not a species that you easily lure into a trap and release all over the place, and it would be very expensive to be able to do that, and would probably result in mostly mortality of the individuals before they were even released.  I talked to a number of fur-bearer biologists in different states that have had to deal with that controversy, and I should just say that it does not happen, and states are not releasing mountain lions in different regions.

Eric:  Well, thanks for your time.

Moderator:  We have a question from Nick in Vermillion.

He says, "Can't the mountain lions be relocated rather than killed?  Surely there are areas where their population is getting thin.   Just because we are encroaching on their territory doesn't mean we should exterminate them."  What about that?

Jenks:  We actually thought about that.  One of my students had some ideas on how we might evaluate that.  If you look in the literature, it's been an unsuccessful approach, and even individuals that we have captured - we had a couple of individuals, and we said, "Well, let's just give this a shot, and we'll go ahead and release them into an area where we knew there were missing individuals in the population, and the animals went right back to where they were causing issues.  So there's no data that would support that that's a viable approach to solving problem animal issues.

Moderator:  So the reason they do this is because this is home, or the way that certain animals establish themselves.  That they just find their way back from where they came from?

Jenks:  There are so many different factors affecting why an animals stays where it is, and we can't predict.  We can look at a couple of different variables and say, Ah! This looks like a good spot; we don't believe that there are any other lions that occupy this site so let's go ahead and drop the individual and we'll assume that's it's going to absolutely adore this spot and not want to leave.  But we can't put ourselves inside the head of an animal and be able to predict what it's going to do.  Most of the time, we haven't been successful when we try to that.

Moderator:  One last email from Sherri.  She says, "Why the paranoia in killing these beautiful animals.  I live at Deer Mountain, and I know we have mountain lions.  We have never seen them.  They don't want to see us.  If we leave the mountain lions alone, they will maintain the deer health population.  It's all about money and hunting, isn't it?'

Jenks:  A lot of things that were said.  It's a pretty complex email, I guess I would say.  A lot of things going on.  It's difficult to be able to respond to even one part of that email.  I don't know how to respond.  Do mountain lions control prey populations?  There hardly any information out there that really supports that, for one thing.

Is it all about money?  I guess I can't comment on that because I'm not privy to exactly what the costs are that are involved.  All I know is that I collect data about this population to try to understand it - how it grows and what its size is, and that sort of thing.  As far as the money part of it, I guess I can't talk about that.

Moderator: And she has one more follow up email:  "What about using injections like Deprovera and a dart gun to provide birth control to many females.  They use this in other states to manage wildlife."

Jenks:  Mostly unsuccessfully, I would say.  It requires more than one injection, so you have to give multiple exposures to the material, and with mountain lions the ability to capture it twice and this and that makes this almost impossible to do it.  Mountain lions have such large territories and home ranges and movement patterns, you couldn't use that kind of technology on those critters.

Moderator:  Before we get to the next guest, do you have time for more than one call-in question?

Jenks:  Sure.

Moderator:  Let's go to Bob, calling from Aberdeen.  Bob, welcome to Dakota Midday.

Bob:  Hi, thanks for taking my call.  I was just wondering if any of the doctor's information as far as the radio tracking information, is online and available to the public at all.

Jenks:  Some of it is online on our website.  Most of the information we provide now is in pdf form, so I could send you a direct link to where that information is available and stored.

Moderator:  Bob, why don't you stay on line, and we'll provide that information to you.

Dr. Jonathan Jenks,we appreciate your sharing your information with us. 

Coming up, we will talk with Black Hills veterinarian Tom Huhnerkoch.  He's been critical of hunting season regulations and says there's no justification for lowering the mountain lion population to proposed levels.  That's next, as we continue our discussion about mountain lions in the Black Hills.

The state division of Game Fish & Parks is taking public comments through July 26th.  I want to point out that we invited officials of GFP to join us today.  None were available.  However, we do expect to have one on a future program as we continue the discussion on this topic. 

I'm joined now on the phone by retired Black Hills veterinarian Tom Huhnerkoch.  He joins us on the phone from his home in Lead.  Tom Huhnerkoch, welcome to Dakota Midday

Huhnerkoch:  Thank you.

Moderator:  Why are you critical of these proposed hunting season regulations.

Huhnerkoch:  Like Dr. Jenks said, it's a very complex issue.  One of the biggest problems is that we don't allow trends to develop.  Every year in the past five years, they've increased the quota.  That's a 500% increase in five years.  Any biologist worth his salt is going to take at least three years to study something to see what the outcomes are.  This can't happen every 12 months.  Five to eight years is pretty much standard.  The best studies have been ten years in New Mexico and now ongoing in Colorado, and a 16-year study in Idaho.  Time is really of the essence.

There's no justification for lowering the mountain lion population.

Time is really of the essence.  I might suggest one other thing - quickly - before I get cut off.  He said a drop of 30% was not significant.  If you drop your stock portfolio and your savings account 30%, that's significant.  If you know you're going to take out 30% of the cats, and you add in all the other losses, and they're there, you're going to have a problem.

And then when you couple that now with Wyoming--we talked on the phone last  night--Wyoming is going to put the screws to these guys, and they've gone public saying they are going to put them in a sink situation, in other words, a desperately declining population.  Even Wyoming uses a three year program.  We change every year.  That's wrong. 

Moderator:  So you're saying the proposed changes in South Dakota - or maybe the ones that have already been instituted as well as what is being proposed in Wyoming, plus the smaller deer herd in the Black Hills as a food source, would reduce the Black Hills population too much.

Huhnerkoch:  I believe so.  That hasn't been proven.  There's no way to prove it without time.  The books talk about a sledge hammer approach to population control.  That's what this is going to end up.

Wyoming fully admits that the deer problem is habitat and nutritional factors.  They don't talk about the cats.  Well now, through no fault of their own, they're going to kill more cats, because now, for a given area, there's too many of them.  Well, that's not their fault.  The problem is that Nature will control populations,

Now for a given area, but, there's no doubt, that they can keep a deer population or a prey population depressed.  We know that.  But it takes two to four years before they can show a population decrease naturally.  So right now, after this last four to five years of drought, winters, increased hunting - dramatically hunting.  They know that, but they dropped the licenses, they're going to increase the Wyoming take, increase the South Dakota take by 100% from last year, right at the same time.

It's possible, very possible, that the natural downturn in the cougar itself will happen, and that a third factor.  No one is looking at that.

Moderator:  Our guest is Tom Huhnerkoch.  He is a retired veterinarian in the Black Hills.  If you have a comment, call ----- and our email is --------.

The report that has spurred this topic on our program and this conversation cites the following benefits of a smaller mountain lion population:

• Fewer lions would have to be killed because they are in residential areas or are threats to livestock or pets.
• A 40% reduction in the number of lions struck and killed by vehicles.
• Improvement in the overall health of the population and less disease.
• Saving an estimated 1650 deer, elk, and other big game animals killed by lions each year for food.

How does that affect your position, if at all? 

Huhnerkoch:  Glad you mentioned that.  First thing I want to say, you have to be very careful with research and data and the way this research was funded the way it is.  That's all I can say.

Yesterday, I sent out this program and plan to 18 experts around the nation.  I hope to heaven that they respond.  Many times biologists don't respond because they depend financially and job security, and they are intimidated.  Those are the people we should be listening to. 

But to address your question about lions being killed.  The problem with our killing them is their program of zero tolerance within city limits.  I always use the following example: the cat does not know where the forest ends and city starts.  It's been going into the area for a million years, or a hundred years.  The similar analogy would be a cow on primitive land is that it doesn't know where the primitive ends and the private begins.  So the problem with problem cats doesn't really exist.  It's perceived in the mind of the FG&P, and they don't have to do this killing.

The last 6 to 8 months we've had about that many safely removed - Boulder, Utah, Washington - all over.  The information is out there. 

Moderator:  You're saying there's evidence that these mountain lions can be moved to another area?

Huhnerkoch:  It's very, very possible.  We do have an island situation - a very small island in the middle of the prairie.  That is a fact.  I'll grant them that in their defense.  But, as they say in Washington, and Brian [Kerson?] was here a year ago.  If you take them back, you give them a fighting chance--there's some humanity, there's some compassion there.  You can shoot them out of a tree, where they're sleeping on Story Book Island or under a trailer in Yankton.  That's death!  That's the end of the story.

40% reduction in lions struck by cars.  Well, that is going down.  But look what's going up!  The human population, development, the roads, the traffic.  There's no reason to suspect that's going to change.

In Florida, they lost 12 to 15 of their precious panthers already this year.  There going to keep losing those cats.  It's the argument between what they call adaptive and compensatory loss, and their attitude rather.  Very complex.

Moderator:  What about what Jonathan Jenks said, if you try to move these animals, they are just going to find their way back.

Huhnerkoch:  That happens.  Very much. It happened in Deadwood, it happened with that [Geese Steal?] a couple of years ago.  It happens because we don't have the volume where they can go.  But they do disperse.  It does give them a chance.  My point in my article is that Wortman wrote, Where is the risk?  Where is the loss?  Look at their own data.  They don't have human involvement.  They don't have much livestock loss.  Yet they cater to three basic groups: those who are running in fear - because they've created a lot of that fear--the hunter and the rancher.  And that's the honest-to-God truth.

If you don't believe me, go to the meetings.  My God!  It's unbelievable what is said at some of those meetings. They've always catered to them.

In fact, I'm looking at Page 5 of the synopsis from the judge in 2005.  "Irreparable harm will be done to DFGP if we didn't have a season," targeting the hunters.  Well, what's more irreparable than death.  Sure, they lost some money, but they said there would be no harm to the cats.

They've always catered to those groups, and they always will, and that's the part of the problem.  There more people out there that feel like I do, but they've given up, because it falls on deaf ears.  They say one thing and do another.

It's always about the hunting.  Cat's are not just about money.  It is in some states.  [Can't understand what being said here.]

Fear that is unjustified.  I think it's a hate that has existed forever and probably will never go away.  Where is the risk?

And the deer loss.  They say that the cats killed as many as hunters did last year.  Hunters kill, they field dress, they put on a tag.  The ones that are injured - they don't know what happened to those.

The cat kills something - they don't know what they take - they're estimating.  When you read the plan, it's always estimated.  Maybe models that are inherently wrong. They err many times on the positive.

Moderator:  They say give or take 10%. Is it within that margin of error, do you think?

Huhnerkoch:  I'd have to look. 

We have an email question for you:  Deadwood has been using rubber bullets to keep cats out of city limits.  How do you feel about this?  Is it working?

Huhnerkoch: I talked with the bear whisperer in California.  I'll admit that bears are different from cougars.  There was an article in the paper a couple of months ago.  I haven't talked to Kelly about it.  I know they did shoot one and created an issue.

I don't know if aversion - they call it aversion therapy - hazing is another word.  They're doing these things in many areas.   Yeah, we don't have a lot of idea of whether it works or not.  We don't know.     But we've always managed with the hook and the bullet.  Until that stops, until you get some compassion and concern for the critters in the future, nothing going to change.

Moderator:  We mentioned that the Department of Fish & Game will take public comments through July 26th on its proposal. 

Huhnerkoch:  Frankly, it doesn't do a lot of good.  I've been doing this for 11 years - 11 years!  In fact, I just sued, trying to get some answers.  I think it falls on deaf ears.  I do.  I told them exactly how things were last year about this time in July.  A PowerPoint program - the children, the problem with the losses, the depredation.  I laid everything out. Not one comment!  Ever!  They increased the kill to 25, next year, to 40.  What's going to happen next year?  Are they going to increase it again?

I've seen one fawn this year.  The deer are down.  But they are not down because of the cats.  What's going to happen when this natural drop in the cougar population happens right on top of the sledge hammer that they're going to apply?  There's going to be problems.

They don't have the right to stop those dispersers going East.  They're going anywhere.  They don't have that right.  That's a historic thing.  That's an animal thing.  They shouldn't be able to stop that.  But that's what they're doing.

Moderator:  Tom, we're going to have to get ready to move on to another segment.  But there was a call that I wanted to take from Will in Rapid City.  Will, go ahead with your comment or question.

Will:  Yes, I'd wondering how many mountain lions the Black Hills could sustain.

Huhnerkoch:  I think we're at that point or beyond.  We've probably above. There's no doubt about that, either.  But that's such a dynamic thing.  First of all, if you do anything at all, you have to know where you start.  Nobody knows what we have.  We never will.  Total renumeration is the Holy Grail of wildlife management.  If we knew what we had, then we could do a better job.  But we never will.

You can have X today and 10 can die and 10 can leave or come in.  You never know what you started with.  If you don't know what you started with, everything now managed is biased in one way or another. 

What they're claiming in Dan's work is that everything you read in that report is pointed toward saturation, overpopulation, excessive carrying capacity--but they don't know.  If you can't define those things, you can't know where you started.

Moderator:  Well, if the estimated population is 250, is that more than the Black Hills can sustain? 

Huhnerkoch:  If you looked at the square miles, the square kilometers....  The volume of the Hills doesn't change, but the dynamics of the Hill does change.  The people population, development.  The habitat is what determines the capacity, probably more than hunting. 

But if you look at the miles and the home ranges--they swear that the home ranges are changing, downward.  Maurice Hornocker just put out a new book, COUGAR, a couple of months ago.  He is the god when it comes to cougar management.  He started in the 60s in Idaho.  Everybody is saying that ranges range.  Maurice came out and said, "Ranges do not shrink."  Now who are going to believe?  They have to prove this.

We have to get out of the box.  We have to get our data out to other people.  If they come back, and they say, "Hey!  These guys are spot on!"  I will be the first one to stand up and give them kudos.  But until that happens....

I think maybe 10 males.  Females, they tolerate each other, so they are naturally in the same range.  It's called mutual avoidance.  They will avoid each other.  But COUGAR MANAGEMENT GUIDELINES, which is a book that they hate.  They quote it, but they hate it.  COUGAR MANAGEMENT GUIDELINES says that up to 40-50% of females disperse.  So where is that [can't understand the rest....]  And why is the answer always kill?

Moderator:  That's a question that a lot of people are asking, and unfortunately, we need to call this segment here, but we will continue the conversation in the future.

First of all.  Will, thanks for the call.  We appreciate it.

Will:  Thanks, Dan. 

Huhnerkoch:  The North American Conservation Model says that hunting will always be a part, but it says that science must drive management decisions.  In South Dakota, just those groups that I mentioned are what driving management.  Science is quoted, but it's not the big factor.

Moderator:  Black Hill retired veterinarian Tom Huhnerkoch, or Dr. Tom, as folks like to call him, thanks for your time.  We appreciate it.