Utah wildlife officials again seek bigger cougar hunt
Several indicators give DWR biologists valuable information about Utah's cougar population and how the population is doing.
Several indicators give DWR biologists valuable information about Utah's cougar population and how the population is doing.
Several indicators give DWR biologists valuable information about Utah's cougar population and how the population is doing.
Several indicators give DWR biologists valuable information about Utah's cougar population and how the population is doing.
Cougar hunting quotas are causing an uproar in Utah.
The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources is making the rounds over the next week explaining to wildlife Regional Advisory Councils throughout the state their reasons for allowing more hunting permits for the predators. Not many in northern Utah, it seems, are happy. Conservationists say hunting the animals is inhumane and disrupts the cats’ social structure. Local hunters say the quotas are too high, threatening viable populations. Meanwhile, ranchers say cougar conflicts are pushing them to the brink.
“Obviously there are passionate people on all sides of the argument,” said Darren DeBloois, Game Mammals Program coordinator for DWR. “We try to walk down the middle.”
It’s tough to know how many mountain lions are prowling around Utah since the creatures are so elusive. DWR estimates there are around 2,000 adult mountain lions and around 2,000 kittens and 1-year-olds.
Most of state biologists’ data comes from harvested cats. Whenever a hunter or rancher kills a cougar, they’re required to take it to a DWR field office where the animal is examined for its age and gender.
• RELATED: Utah Division of Wildlife again recommending bigger cougar hunt
With those numbers in mind, biologists say the state’s mountain lions are doing well. The DWR recommends allowing hunters to take 653 cougars for the coming year. That quota has steadily risen over the past decade. Last year, the quota was 581. The season before, it was 531.
Cougars are difficult to hunt, so the amount of actual cats harvested is lower than those quotas. In 2017, for example, hunters reported taking 456 cougars.
The cougar permits are divided among regional management areas in Utah, based on prey populations, livestock conflicts and the prior season’s harvest data. The state biologists rely on the controversial 2015 Utah Cougar Management Plan when making their recommendations. Less than 40 percent of the killed mountain lions should be female, per the plan, and at least 15 percent must be over five years old.
“If we see females increasing or ages decreasing, we decrease tags. We’ll keep an eye on it,” DeBloois said.
DWR data also indicate cougar populations have been growing over the last decade, DeBloois said.
“But I also think we’re probably starting to see some leveling off,” he said.
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That data doesn’t align with what some hunters say they’re seeing on the ground.
The Utah Houndsmen Association has issued a letter calling the increase “drastic.”
“Honestly, we’re kind of angry in a way,” said Randy Hatch, member of the Utah Houndsmen Association. “They’re a protected species just like a deer or elk or moose … We’d like to see an older class of lions, we think there’s too much harvest going on.”
Hatch said cougar hunters often get a bad rap, but they care passionately about the animals.
“It’s truly the most the wild hunt there is. It’s an animal rarely seen,” he said. “The time, skill and effort in training dogs, making a run and seeing it finished out, it’s an awesome feeling. You respect them because you know their power.”
In fact, Hatch usually opts to shoot the cat with a camera, not a rifle. He said most of the houndsmen he associates with rarely kill cougars.
“We get labeled as people who like to kill everything, and it’s not that,” he said. “We’re taking them on occasion, that’s part of the circle of life. But believe me, if I see an animal get taken, there’s some sorrow in it.”
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Lynn Chamberlain/Utah DWR
Several indicators give DWR biologists valuable information about Utah’s cougar population and how the population is doing.
Beyond an increase in recommended harvest permits, Hatch and other houndsmen are worried about poaching. They claim some hunters kill cougars in areas where they aren’t permitted and report false locations to DWR.
They want DWR to require GPS coordinates from hunters, which is something the agency is open to. DeBloois said DWR is working on a smartphone app that would snap a picture and location.
In parts of the state where cougar hunting is popular, Hatch disagrees with DWR’s population estimates. He said there are fewer cougars than before. Some areas, like the Book Cliffs, are becoming overrun with outfitters from out-of-state who make thousands of dollars on guided hunts.
“Regardless of what their studies may pool, these houndsmen spend hands-down more time than anybody among these animals,” Hatch said. “We’re not against outfitters by any means, but we want to look out for Utahns first and keep a healthy lion population. We don’t want to see it low, we don’t want to see it overrun.”
Courtesy Utah Division of Wildlife Resources
Several indicators give DWR biologists valuable information about Utah’s cougar population and how the population is doing.
Meanwhile, some ranchers argue the lion population is out of control. They’d like to see more cougar harvest or at least more compensation for their lost livestock.
“Everywhere we go with our sheep this year, we’ve had severe mountain lion loss,” said Bret Selman.
Selman is a third-generation rancher who runs around 3,000 ewes in Cache and Box Elder counties. His animals graze on public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service. He also has 24,000 private acres.
Last week he said he lost 10 lambs to a mountain lion in Logan Canyon.
“It ate maybe 5 pounds out of two of them,” he said. “The rest were killed for fun — left laying there, rotting in the sun. It’s sickening.”
DWR compensates ranchers for livestock they can confirm were lost to predators. This year, however, they maxed out their $180,000 budget. State officials have 71 confirmed cougar depredation incidents so far.
Selman said DWR’s depredation payouts grossly underestimate how many of his animals are actually taken by the lions. He figures for every lamb that he can confirm was killed by a cougar, there are two others.
“Mountain lions eat baby lambs like you and I eat a Snickers bar, only they eat the wrapper, too,” he said. “How can you confirm a loss that’s totally gone? That’s part of the trouble.”
While the state’s Cougar Management Plan tries to keep female harvests low to maintain the population, Selman said mother cats are the biggest problem.
“One, the houndsmen don’t take them so there’s more of them. Two, they’re teaching kittens how to kill and sheep are easy for them to get,” he said.
Females also have a smaller range than mature toms, which means mother cats often camp out around Selman’s herds.
The cats have become a big enough problem that Selman fears it’s unsustainable.
“If you had an automobile dealership and some crook was coming in stealing a car once a week, how much of that do you want to deal with?” he said. “The ripple effect of when a rancher goes out of business … what happens to his private ground? He sells it. It becomes condos and cabins and 40-acre lots. What does that do to wildlife?”
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Courtesy Utah Division of Wildlife Resources
Several indicators give DWR biologists valuable information about Utah’s cougar population and how the population is doing.
Conservationists, however, argue the growing cougar conflicts with ranchers have less to do with growing predator populations and more to do with a disruption to the cats’ social structure.
“(Hunters) are removing the trophy-sized animals without any real understanding of the ecological impact,” said Kirk Robinson with Western Wildlife Conservancy.
Cougar advocates point to recent studies which indicate killing older toms leads to more human conflicts with younger males.
“It’s like turning over your house to teenagers,” Robinson said. “It disrupts the social organization. It also means a lot more younger cougars who don’t know how to hunt. They are the ones who cause most of the trouble.”
Like the Utah Houndsmen Association, cougar advocats are quick to note that DWR can recommend no cougar permit increases at all, regardless of their population data, and still stay within the guidelines of the Cougar Management Plan.
While they’d like to see cougar hunting eliminated in Utah completely, wildlife conservationists say curbing quotas is a fair compromise.
“A proposal from DWR is no good if it only meets the interests of one side,” said Sundays Hunt, Utah director for the Humane Society. “That’s why we have to — all parties — give something to get to something that does work.”
The state’s five Regional Advisory Councils are meeting through Aug. 3 to review the cougar recommendations and provide their own recommendations to the Utah Wildlife Board, which has the final say on cougar hunt permits. The board meets in Salt Lake City on Aug. 30 to vote on the coming cougar hunt changes.
Contact Reporter Leia Larsen at 801-625-4289 or llarsen@standard.net. Follow her on Facebook.com/LeiaInTheField or on Twitter @LeiaLarsen.