Guest opinion: When mountain lion hunters assume a need to kill, science provides evidence to the contrary
Guest opinion
The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission, a citizen board appointed by the governor, voted in January to shorten the season on trophy hunting mountain lions (also known as cougars or pumas) and to disallow electronic calls. Citizens raised many good questions, concerned about the fact more females (43.9%) are being killed early in this season.
We are conservation scientists representing a cumulative body of knowledge and experience covering over a century. We are writing this opinion piece to offer some answers and dispel myths and misinformation being spread by trophy hunters about mountain lions and the special interest groups that support them.
While we appreciate different viewpoints, these must be firmly grounded in science. It’s not enough to make magical wishes and unproven assumptions when it comes to managing our valuable wildlife.
If the citizens of Colorado wish to know the hard truths about the effects of hunting mountain lions for sport, we have answers supported by more than 50 years of wildlife science. This includes science that documents the ecological value of these apex predators, including reducing the prevalence and transmission of chronic wasting disease.
The general public also deserves to know, for instance, whether someone’s enjoyment of hunting mountain lions in Colorado for sport, where they are allowed to keep the trophy or head and hide, is actually helping with population control of predators or boosting prey populations.
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To the contrary, we know from peer-reviewed scientific studies that sport hunting of mountain lions has consistently failed to reduce human-mountain lion conflicts or conflict with livestock and does not increase deer or elk populations. The opposite has been found to be true, as high levels of sport hunting has the risk of adversely affecting biodiversity and ecosystem health.
The overly simplistic concept that sport hunting can lead to higher deer or elk populations has been around for decades and yet, evidence to support this “hypothesis” is simply lacking. Instead, considerable research over the last few decades concludes repeatedly that killing predators to enhance deer or elk populations simply fails to produce sustained results. Colorado biologists have wisely pointed out that when investigating deer losses, the state must consider multiple variables at work including extreme weather, oil and gas development, and infectious disease.
Additionally, research in the last couple of decades has provided strong evidence that sport hunting mountain lions will exacerbate conflict by causing an imbalance in lion population structure that will result in a younger age structure with an increase in the proportion of young transient males in a population. These young lions are more likely to be involved in conflict with humans and livestock.
In Colorado, recent data show more juveniles or subadults are being killed by sport hunters, along with hunters having to spend more days in the field. Add to this the number of female mountain lions killed for sport (40% average from 2019 to 2022, and 43.9% in this current season), which does not account for the deaths of dependent kittens, most of which will succumb to starvation.
Several studies in Western states have also provided evidence that high hunting pressure actually leads to higher livestock depredation rates, rather than lower. The relatively high levels of sport hunting of mountain lions in Colorado may be exacerbating conflict (the opposite of the desired effect), due in part to a disproportionately younger population that has considerably less experience in securing food (i.e., predation has a strong learned component).
Rather than speculate, Colorado can look to California, where sport hunting of mountain lions has not been allowed for over 50 years.
California lists mountain lions as a specially protected species, with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife centering its policies on the intrinsic and ecological value of having mountain lions on the landscape, rather than the value of sport hunting them.
Despite California’s ban on sport hunting, the fears expressed by lion sport hunters have not come true. California’s livestock industry is robust (supporting more cattle and sheep than all other western states, excluding Texas) and the state supports nearly 40 million people with high levels of those recreating outdoors every day. In reality, human-conflict rates are relatively low in California when compared with metrics that adjust for the differences in livestock numbers, human population, and amount of available mountain lion habitat — not unlike measuring human road mortality by deaths per mile driven, instead of absolute number of deaths per state which would be meaningless in any comparisons.
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This issue is controversial, which is why we encourage citizens to please learn the facts and rely on science rather than make judgments purely based on emotional assumptions. Science can help answer questions, but in the end, the choice to sport hunt cougars or not, is one of human values, not one of science.
As Teddy Roosevelt noted well over a century ago, “No American beast has been the subject of so much loose writing or of such wild fables as the cougar.”
It is critical to realize that there is a lack of evidence that sport hunting mountain lions benefits any wildlife management objective in Colorado or throughout the Western states. Thus, the decision to sport hunt or not rests squarely on whether citizens and states believe it fits their larger moral and societal values, and whether it serves larger environmental goals for future generations. If we look at the science, it’s clear that sport hunting mountain lions leads to an imbalance of nature and the environment.
Delia Malone is an ecologist with the Colorado Natural Heritage Program and is also Wildlife Chair for the Colorado Sierra Club and vice-chair of Roaring Fork Audubon. She lives in Redstone on Colorado’s West slope. David Jennings, Ph.D., is an ecologist and attorney, and an appointed member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources’ World Commission on Environmental Law, and lives in Salida. Rick Hopkins, Ph.D., is a conservation biologist and population ecologist focusing on mammalian carnivores and lives in California. Josh Rosneau is a mammalogist and director of policy with the Mountain Lion Foundation and lives in Washington.
