Humans killing America’s lion in record numbers

How many mountain lions are there in the United States? No one can answer this question. On the other hand, the question of how many mountain lions are killed by humans in the United States can and is answered in a report released today by the Mountain Lion Foundation.

“Humans are killing more mountain lions today in the western United States than we did when the official government policy was to eradicate them,” stated Chris Papouchis, conservation biologist for the Mountain Lion Foundation.

This report documents the extent, causes and distribution of human-caused mountain lion deaths in the American West from 1997 to 2004. During this period, in eleven western states, nearly 30,000 mountain lions were killed or an average of 10 mountain lions killed each day by humans. Sport hunting is the cause of 85% or nearly 25,000 of these deaths.

Further, analysis of where mountain lion deaths occur reveals a number of “mortality hotspots” in the northern Rocky Mountains and in Utah, where mountain lion population declines are being reported by state wildlife agencies and independent researchers. This report raises many questions for state wildlife agencies, especially in light of reports released earlier this year which highlight 1) the ineffectiveness of random killing of mountain lions for public safety and 2) the importance of mountain lions to the health of the natural landscape.

“Right now no state wildlife agency can demonstrate that it is managing the mountain lion for sustainability,” said Lynn Sadler, Mountain Lion Foundation President and CEO. “The stakes are far too high to let this continue unchecked.”

read the full report here: www.pumaconservation.org/