New Mexico law aims at cougar

By DEBORAH BAKER
Associated Press

Monterey Herald.com

Cougars are one of the most elusive predators and the hardest-to-hunt predators on the planet

SANTA FE, N.M. – When snow finally fell recently on the 292,000-acre Bell Ranch in northeastern New Mexico, Bert Ancell went looking for a cougar.

He found the big cat’s tracks, let the dogs out, then followed them perhaps five miles until they lost the scent up a canyon.

”They thought they had him treed… but they could never find him,” recalled Ancell, the cattle ranch’s assistant manager. ”Cougars are one of the most elusive predators and the hardest-to-hunt predators on the planet.”

If Ancell has his way, cougars — also known as mountain lions — could be shot on sight by New Mexicans who happen to encounter them. A proposal pending in the state Legislature would do away with the cougar’s 34-year-old protection as a big-game animal whose hunting is regulated.

Supporters say that would help boost the flagging number of mule deer — a staple of the lions’ diet — as well as aid livestock growers who lose cattle, sheep and horses to the cats’ urge to snack.

And they contend that the difficulty of finding cougars ensures that they wouldn’t die out even if hunting were unlimited.

”If you saw one, you’d have the chance to kind of cut down on the population a little bit,” said Rep. Brian Moore, R-Clayton, the bill’s sponsor, whose huge eastside district borders Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas.

Wildlife advocates are horrified by the proposal, which would give cougars the status of coyotes or skunks. It would make New Mexico the only state other than Texas that treats them as varmints.

Lisa Jennings, executive director of Animal Protection of New Mexico, calls it a return to ”19th century policies and practices regarding wildlife management.” It’s barely a cut above the $5 bounty on cougars that the Territorial Legislature of New Mexico enacted in 1867, she said.

Mountain lions are found in every Western state, and their hunting is regulated by state agencies — except in California, where no sport hunting is allowed.

”Because they are so cryptic and so shy and because they avoid each other… their density across the West is very low,” said Wendy Keefover-Ring, director of carnivore protection for Sinapu, a Boulder, Colo.-based wildlife advocacy group.

A large tom can have a range of 100 square miles, she said.

Over the two decades ending in 2002, the number of mountain lions killed by sport hunters in 10 Western states each year roughly tripled, to 3,500, according to Keefover-Ring.

”I am very concerned that… they may be imperiled,” she said. Instead of the ”wrongheaded” approach of the New Mexico legislation, states ought to be studying the density of the large predators, she said.

In Colorado — where population estimates range from 3,000 to 7,000 — the Wildlife Commission has launched a 10-year study to determine the number of mountain lions, its habitat requirements and the number of prey.

The commission also decided to reduce the number of cougars that can be killed this year, from 790 to 567.

In New Mexico, the Game and Fish Department’s best guess — based on a decade-old study — is that there are between 2,000 and 2,500 of the cats.

The number of mountain lions that can be killed by sport hunters during New Mexico’s six-month season varies by zone, but is capped this year at 233 statewide.

Ranchers and their employees can kill cougars year-round on private lands, but they’re limited to one cougar apiece a year. Those kills don’t count against the statewide harvest limit.

© 2005 Monterey County Herald and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.montereyherald.com

Political appointees move to undermine lynx recovery in Colorado

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information contact:

Jacob Smith, Center for Native Ecosystems 303.546.0214
Rob Edward, Sinapu, 303.477.8655 ext 2#
Sloan Shoemaker, Wilderness Workshop, 970.618.6022
Rocky Smith, Colorado Wild, 303.839.5900

Glenwood Springs, Colorado – The public comment period ends today on a Bush Administration proposal to gut lynx protections on Colorado’s White River National Forest. Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture David Tenny, a political appointee hired by the Bush Administration, ordered the Forest Service to eliminate rules that protect lynx and lynx habitat despite growing numbers of lynx on the forest.

“Deputy Undersecretary Tenny’s order makes clear that the Bush Administration puts snowmobiles, the ski industry and logging companies ahead of sound land stewardship,” said Jacob Smith, executive director of Center for Native Ecosystems.

A coalition of regional and national conservation groups sent extensive comments (copy available upon request) to officials of the White River National Forest regarding the December 2, 2004 order. Charging that the order puts politics over science, the groups urged the agency to subject the order to a thorough public comment and environmental review process. “This unscientific and blatantly illegal move jeopardizes Colorado’s lynx population – animals the taxpayers have spent millions recovering,” said Sloan Shoemaker, executive director of the Wilderness Workshop. “This deal is bad for Colorado’s wildlife and bad for those that value our high quality of life.”

“This is the Bush Administration’s latest volley in the ‘No Lynx Left Alive Initiative’,” said Rob Edward, director of the carnivore restoration program for Sinapu, arguing that Deputy Undersecretary Tenny’s order is part of a larger Bush agenda to roll-back environmental protections. Edward underscored the fact that the order went as far as truncating the public review process mandated for such important policy changes. “The Administration’s order is devoid of science and common-sense. Perhaps that explains why they’ve put it on the fast track – to avoid scrutiny. The lynx can’t speak for themselves in this matter, and the Bush Administration seems to think that nobody else should speak for them either.”

“Colorado has worked hard to recover the lynx, and gutting lynx protection like this is a huge step backward,” said Rocky Smith, Program Director of Colorado Wild’s Forest Watch Campaign.

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Wolf talk

Ruling could revive reintroduction discussion

By Rob Gebhart
The Craig Daily Press

A federal judge’s ruling on wolves has put the implementation of the state wolf working group’s management recommendations on hold indefinitely.

Members of the wolf working group say their efforts still were worthwhile, because they’ve developed a foundation for wolf management in Colorado when wolves are removed from the endangered species list.

Environmentalists are celebrating the decision, saying it could pave the way to reintroduce wolves in Colorado.

But representatives from the agriculture industry are concerned that the decision took away some of the tools ranchers could use to deal with wolves that migrate to Colorado.

Last week, Federal District Court Judge Robert Jones vacated the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to downgrade the legal status of gray wolves in the lower 48 states from endangered to threatened. His decision supported the contentions of environmental groups such as Sinapu, Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club that Fish and Wildlife had rushed to strip wolves of their legal protections.

The judge’s ruling came one day after the Colorado Division of Wildlife held its first meeting to collect public comments about the working group’s recommendations for managing wolves that migrate to Colorado.

The DOW’s plan was to collect public comments and have the working group reconvene to review comments before the Wildlife Commission decided whether or not to adopt the recommendations. If the commission adopted the recommendations, they would have taken effect when Fish and Wildlife removed gray wolves from the endangered species list.

“Overall, I think it means the plan has even more ultimate importance, because it shows an advance good faith effort to develop support for wolves,” said Rob Edward, director of Boulder-based Sinapu and a member of the wolf working group.

The decision gives Colorado a chance no other state has had, he said. The state can develop a plan for the recovery of wolves.

The working group only discussed how to manage wolves that migrate to the state, though at times group members argued about the role wolf reintroduction should play in the plan. Some group members have offered to reconvene to develop a plan for reintroduction.

Edward said he doesn’t like the situation the judge’s decision has put the state in any more than many ranchers do. By returning the wolf to endangered status, it again is illegal to shoot, harm or harass a wolf. Before the decision, Colorado wolf management operated under the 4d rule, which permitted ranchers to kill wolves that attacked livestock.

“That’s not a situation we want to see persisted for the people of Colorado,” Edward said.

Moffat County resident Jean Stetson served on the working group as a representative of the livestock industry. The ruling “took away tools ranchers had to deal with wolves,” Stetson said.

Ranchers can get that tool back only if the government recovers wolves across their historic range, which includes much of Colorado.

“You’re going to have a hard time convincing any livestock producer that’s a good thing,” Stetson said.

But Edward disagreed.

“We can get to recovery very soon if everybody will just cooperate. There are ways we can do this to meet the needs of everybody at the table,” he said.

Edward thinks wolves could be recovered within 10 years.

The Wildlife Commission still officially opposes wolf reintroduction. Fish and Wildlife has announced it is disappointed in the judge’s ruling.