Proposal Increases Cougar Hunting



State wildlife biologists hope to increase the number of hunter-killed cougars in Southern Oregon to help roll back cougar damage and complaints to 1994 levels under a new draft plan.

The foothill fringes of the Rogue and Umpqua valleys are two areas targeted for an increase of up to 45 percent in harvest of female cougars.

The goal is to help trim increases in reported cougar-human conflicts since hound-hunting was banned by voters in 1994, according to a draft of the Oregon Cougar Management Plan.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is scheduled to unveil the long-awaited draft plan today. While it sets a goal for fewer cougars around humans, it calls for no increases in quotas for sport-killed cougars or changes to the year- round hunting season. It also sets an acceptable minimum of 1,200 cougars in the region, which has some of the highest estimated cougar densities in the state.

Under the plan, agency biologists hope to educate people on how to reduce their pet and livestock losses and encourage counties such as Jackson to hire federal Wildlife Services agents to remove damage-causing cougars.

"Essentially, it's the full suite of options we have today," said Ron Anglin, the ODFW's Wildlife Division administrator. "There's education on down to lethal control."

Unlike a similar plan adopted for wolves in Oregon, the draft cougar plan does not ask the Oregon Legislature for any changes to current wildlife laws.

Overall, the draft document represents the most complete look at Oregon's cougar populations ever assembled and uses Oregon studies - not those from other states - to estimate cougar populations in six different zones of the state.

"We've used that data to look at how we can deal zone-by-zone with the issues," Anglin said. "Going zone-by- zone gives you the flexibility to manage at the local level."

The ODFW was scheduled to meet today in Salem with representatives from various groups with a stake in cougar management.

Based on four separate cougar studies scattered throughout Oregon, the draft plan estimated Oregon's cougar population at 5,101 animals in 2003, the latest figures available. The estimate was about 3,000 animals statewide in 1994, the year voters banned hounds for sport-hunting of cougars.

In 1995 - the first year of the hound-hunting ban - 316 hunters with cougar tags killed 35 cougars, down from 144 killed by 358 hunters when hound hunting was legal the previous year.

The ODFW dropped the price of cougar tags in the mid-1990s and the agency sold more than 34,000 tags in 2004, when hunters killed an all-time high of 265 cougars, the draft states.

Despite the increase in harvest, the draft estimates that cougar density has grown in the eight Southern Oregon wildlife management units that make up the Southwest Zone.

The zone, which includes the Rogue Valley and Roseburg areas, now sports an estimated 13 cougars per 100 square miles - the highest density outside of the 13.7 cougars per 100 square miles in the Blue Mountains zone of northeastern Oregon.

"Cougars are one of our success stories," Anglin said. "We brought them back from the brink of extinction by our management. The question now on both sides is what does managing them mean."

Already various groups are taking shots at the draft .

Kevin Westfall of the Oregon Cattlemen's Association said he believes the draft shows the ODFW has "good objectives" for cougar management, but he faulted the draft for failing to outline exactly how to reach those goals.

Westfall said nothing short of restoring hound-hunting of cougars will allow the ODFW to reach the draft 's goals of reducing public-safety problems and livestock damage.

"I think the plan identifies the problem," Westfall said. "But I don't see the plan as having any teeth to get from point A to point B."

Sally Mackler, wildlife chairwoman of the Oregon Chapter of the Sierra Club who has reviewed portions of the draft , said the plan's apparent focus on trying to roll the cougar population back to 1994 levels is arbitrary and not based on biology.

"This is not a biological plan," Mackler said. "This is a political plan. I'm not liking what I'm seeing."

Mackler also faulted the draft for relying on citizen complaints about cougars, which she called an "unreliable biological source."

Anglin said Oregonians' "perception" that they are in danger from a cougar is "our reality."

"All we can do is take at face value when someone says they see a cougar, that they feel threatened by that and that they want us to take some action," Anglin said.

source: http://waterandwoods.net/news.phpextend.1051



Proposal Increases Cougar Hunting