“Predator removals – paid for by the government for 150-years – have done vast damage to wildlife and habitat. How sad that despite all their accumulated animal knowledge and historical experience, the agencies apparently have “…learned nothing and forgotten nothing”.

 

NOTE: this article was originally published to JHNewsandGuide.com on June 19, 2023. It was written by Mike Koshmrl.

The unplanned quota hike is a direct response to mule deer winterkill in the Wyoming Range, though a lion hunter blasts the proposal.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department proposes to boost its mountain lion hunting quotas by approximately 50% in two western Wyoming mountain ranges where mule deer populations were decimated by winter.

Draft regulations released by the state agency last Tuesday increase the maximum numbers of cats that can be killed in four Wyoming and Salt River range hunt areas from 46 to 70 animals total. The hike comes after numerous big game hunting outfitters and guides pressured Game and Fish officials to go after lions, bears and coyotes in the wake of an especially deadly winter for mule deer.

The native large felines are managed in the Wyoming Range with the “overarching theme” of using hunting to “stabilize and/or reduce populations,” according to Dan Thompson, Game and Fish’s large carnivore supervisor.

Mountain lion licenses are sold in unlimited quantities over the counter, but most hunt areas are capped and the open season ends when a designated number of lions are killed. The quotas for the coming season were already determined and finalized in July 2022. Ordinarily, the seasons are only updated once every three years.

Cat quotas increased slightly during the 2022 revision. Then came a winter that killed roughly two-thirds of all adult deer in the region. Now wildlife managers are proposing a more substantial increase. Although killing more lions may placate western Wyoming big game outfitters, some lion hunters are not pleased.

Who said what

“I’m going to hold my ground on the way I feel about it,” Jason Reinhardt, a Star Valley houndsman, told WyoFile. “It proves that they don’t pay attention to the science. And more than half of those units, the quotas don’t even fill anyway.”

“I do believe that a potential exists to provide a more rapid rebound by targeting predator species,” Wyoming Game and Fish Department Director Brian Nesvik told WyoFile in April. “It’s certainly not absolute, but the potential exists.”

Next up

The updated mountain lion regulations are not yet a done deal. They’re subject to public comments, which are being accepted through August 4. Wyoming Game and Fish is also hosting a series of meetings about the revised seasons for lion hunt areas 14, 17, 26 and 29.

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