Cougar Control, or Who Is Merrill Lynching?
Last Thursday the Olympian Online reported [here] that Washington Governor Christine Gregoire signed a bill expanding the use of dogs in cougar hunts. The Senate passed the bill by a 31-18 vote earlier this month. The measure adds three years to a program that allows people to hunt cougars with dogs. The existing program has been operating since 2004, and it includes five counties in northeast Washington. The new bill allows all counties to participate.
The Democrat-controlled Senate and Democrat Governor passed and signed the bill despite Initiative 655 of 1996 whereby the practice was banned.
The Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife reports that there are 2,500 cougars in Washington and the population is growing in leaps and bounds (the actual number may be as much as 4,000 according to some sources). From the WDFW website [here].
[M]ore cougar attacks have been reported in the western United States and Canada over the past 20 years than in the previous 80. In Washington, one fatal cougar attack was recorded in 1924. Since then 12 non-fatal attacks have been recorded, 11 of them since 1992. …
Washington populations have more than doubled since the early 1980’s. Our increasing cougar and human populations and decreasing habitat creates new management challenges. The WDFW is responding to over 500 complaints a year regarding urban sightings, attacks on livestock and pets, and cougar/human confrontations.
The problem is serious enough to warrant action, at least in the judgment of the Washington State government.
Linda Lewis, on her website CougarInfo [here] reports:
Facts vs Folklore: Still thought to be endangered by most, in reality mountain lions have made a rapid comeback throughout the United States and Canada after bountied hunting was banned in the 1960’s. A recent estimate by wildlife ecologists puts lion numbers at more than 31,000 in 12 Western states. This number may be more mountain lions in the West than there were before European settlement according to Maurice Hornocker, a senior scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society. States such as California estimate lion populations which were as low as 600 are now closer to 6,000. Though scientific studies are difficult and expensive, Oregon is another state with similar estimates (about 5,000 currently). Recently, the presence of mountain lions has been confirmed in Manitoba, Canada. My e-mails report sightings in regions where they were considered extinct, including Nebraska, Minnesota, New York, Indiana, Arkansas, Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Ontario. I have read of recent sightings in Kansas where I grew up without a thought of mountain lion presence.
Diet: Though their favorite prey is deer, these opportunistic predators can feed on a wide variety of animals from grasshoppers to elk. If very hungry, they can even eat pet food or garbage. A healthy cougar, however, is drawn to hunt for live prey. They kill larger prey by jumping onto their backs and tackling them to the ground. Then they sink their teeth into the necks and throats of their quarry, often strangling them to death. (Adaptable in their methods, elk are downed by use of a claw in the snout to wrench the neck down and break it.) They also rake the deer or elk with their long claws to cripple it. A cougar will kill up to one deer, elk, calf, bighorn sheep, or goat per week. In the 1990’s about 200,000 deer per year were killed by lions in California alone.
Human Attack Statistics: From 1890 to this date I list 18 1confirmed attacks involving human fatalities in the United States and Canada that have resulted 19 deaths. 2 more very probably due to a cougar but unconfirmed bring the total to 21 deaths. Of the 19 confirmed deaths, 12 were children, from a 3-year-old boy in Colorado to a 13-year-old boy in Washington. The average age of the children killed was a little over 8 years old. In addition another 3-year-old boy in 1991 was probably killed by a cougar, but only lion tracks and drag marks were ever found. 13 of confirmed fatal attacks were initiated on children, though only the defending mother was killed in one case and another woman died later purportedly due to rabies while defending a 10-year-old who also died from the same symptoms. Of children killed, only one was a girl. To date, only 2 deaths confirmed by a cougar have been adult males. The other 5 were female. Both the 18-year-old and 35-year-old males confirmed as killed by a cougar were involved in fitness activities (jogging/bicycling) as were three of the adult women (jogging/cross country skiing).
Since 1960 14 have died due to mountain lion attacks after bounty hunting was banned in the United States and Canada. Since 1990 9 have died as a result of confirmed mountain lion attacks with 1 more suspected but unconfirmed since the victim’s body was never found. If the total of 10 fatal attacks is considered, in the just the past 14 years, the number of attacks resulting in fatalities is equal to the total of those during the entire 100 years from 1890 to 1990 noted below. …
A scientific review of records on attacks by cougars on humans in the United States and Canada (by wildlife ecologist, Professor Paul Beier, at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, and formerly of University of California, Berkeley, published in 1991) indicated this: 1890-1990, 53 total attacks, 9 attacks resulting in 10 fatalities.
All this is controversial, as is most predator control. Many people believe that predators should by allowed to multiply to unlimited numbers, that deer and elk (not to mention human beings) are of less importance than cougars, that wildlife populations should not be managed, and that humans should remove themselves from nature and cease to practice wildlife stewardship of any kind.
Among those of that persuasion is the San Francisco-based Mountain Lion Foundation [here]. Their “core values” include:
We believe the cougar is the foremost symbol of our vanishing wilderness. As their habitat disappears, so do their only chances for survival. And when the cougar is in peril, so is every other living thing in their ecosystem.
As a society, we assume responsibility for the welfare of not only the cougar, but all wildlife. Their survival is now a moral obligation.
We oppose the sport hunting of mountain lions on the grounds that it is biologically and morally unjustified. Sport hunting is neither a legitimate wildlife management technique nor a morally justified recreational activity.
We believe animals have a right to exist naturally. We disagree with the prevailing wildlife model that says wild animal management should always be oriented toward hunting. We support management that is oriented toward sustaining natural wildlife populations.
We will attack the root causes of problems for wildlife and their habitat, rather than dwelling on the symptoms.
By “attacking the root causes” the Mountain Lion Foundation apparently means “action alerts,” lobbying, and lawsuits. The MLF has filed numerous lawsuits since their inception in 1986 [here].
Which is certainly within their rights to do so. It’s a free, albeit litigious, country.
Of no minor interest is the financial backing of the MLF. The MLF Board is [here]. The current Chair is Toby Cooper, a Financial Advisor who works for Merrill Lynch Inc. The current Vice-Chair is Elizabeth Sullivan, Vice President and Senior Financial Consultant, Merrill Lynch Inc. whose job includes “planned giving consulting to non-profits.”
Again, it is certainly within the rights of Merrill Lynch Inc. to give money to whomever they please. It’s a free country.
I merely point all this out to remind readers that Merrill Lynch Inc. is a private company, and it is within your rights NOT to do business with them. It’s a free country, and you need not invest your hard-earned dollars with Merrill Lynch Inc. if you don’t want to.
Merrill Lynch Inc. garners significant (capitalist) profits from managing investment portfolios. Then they gift a portion of those profits to organizations like the Mountain Lion Foundation. That may not be your cup of tea, for various reasons. If not, please do not hesitate to take your investment business elsewhere.
Merrill Lynch Inc. supports mountain lions. They do not necessarily support the victims of mountain lions, wildlife or human. In turn, you need not support Merrill Lynch Inc.
It’s a free country.
