In a move met with lively debate, Utah made an “emergency change” by increasing the cougar harvest objectives in 11 areas across the state in hopes of helping struggling deer populations.
The Utah Division Wildlife Resources on Thursday increased by 117 the “harvest objective,” meaning once the quota is reached in these areas the hunt will close, the agency stated.
“We basically wanted to increase some of our cougar harvest in those areas since they’re the primary predator for deer, just as kind of a way to stabilize and help some of those mule deer populations that are struggling to recover more quickly,” Faith Heaton Jolley, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources spokeswoman, told KSL.com.
“It’s just been different pockets of the state that have either been hit really hard by these heavy winters or by drought seasons.”
In August, the agency raised the quota for the fourth straight year, agreeing to 690 cougar permits, an increase of 46 from the previous year, KSL.com reported, adding that there are more than 2,500 estimated adult mountain lions in the state compared to about 1,000 in 2004.
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The hunting harvest-objective units are listed on the DWR website.
Not everybody was happy with the change, and a back-and-forth discussion ensued at the end of the KSL.com post. Among the comments:
“Killing the cougars is not going to do very much to increase deer populations. Human involvement is causing the deer decline. Work on the deer poaching and land grab problem.”
“Most people don’t realize the impact these cats actually do have on deer populations. It might not be the same case in certain areas, but there are plenty of places that do need more cougar tags because they are definitely hurting deer populations in those areas.”
“We have way too many deer out there, let the cougars do their job.”
“I guess this is the difference between a team of scientists making a decision and laymen off the street. They are making a decision based off of years of collected data and are trying to make the best decision from that. Separating our emotions from these kinds of decisions can yield great results and be far less divisive.”
“Mother Nature is very good at maintaining herd populations and health through natural predators. Only since the introduction of human ‘sport’ hunting of both predator and prey animals has herd populations and health become an issue. It’s a man caused problem. So, take man out of the equation and let nature do what it’s done successfully for tens of thousands of years.”
“There’s sometimes controversy with hunting predator species,” Jolley told KSL.com. “The biggest thing is we’re trying to reduce some of these populations where these deer are struggling, and it can help facilitate them to recover more quickly, but it’s also all these quotas we’ve set will help (maintain) sustainable management for both these predator and prey populations.”
Photos and graphic courtesy of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.