When animals stalk humans, hunters should shoot back
By Mary Zeiss Stange


''It's crazy: When you want to hike public land in California, the Fish and Game folks give you a pamphlet warning you to be on the lookout for poison oak on backcountry trails, as if that's the biggest danger out there. The pamphlet doesn't even mention mountain lions.''

So a California acquaintance, and fellow hunter, remarked to me shortly after the January cougar attacks that left one bicyclist dead and another severely injured.

''If we could still hunt those big cats,'' he added, ''we wouldn't have this problem.''

He might have a point. Wildlife officials estimate that today there are 4,000 to 6,000 cougars in California, a tenfold increase since hunting them in that state was stopped in the early 1970s. Not only are lion sightings up dramatically, but lion attacks on livestock, pets and humans have risen sharply. An average of one human has been attacked per year since 1990; three have died.

Steve Torres, an environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Game, told the San Francisco Chronicle that, with ''humans and lions interfacing,'' attacks such as the one that took the life of Mark Reynolds Jan. 8 are bound to continue occurring.

Reynolds, 35, an amateur mountain-bike racer, was attacked while biking alone in Orange County's Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park. His partially eaten body was discovered several hours later near the site of a second lion attack that same day. That attack left 30-year-old mountain biker Anne Hjelle severely injured. A young male mountain lion subsequently was shot by wildlife officials, who were able to determine that the animal was responsible for both attacks.

Might an open season on mountain lions help prevent such awful encounters?

A key reason for reintroducing regulated hunting is that it would reinstill in predators a fear of humans. That's a fear they clearly have lost if they've gotten to the point of seeing people as prey, or at least as non-competitors in the food chain. California mountain lions -- also called cougars, pumas and panthers -- have been off-limits to hunters since 1971, when a plunging cat population led then-governor Ronald Reagan to sign a moratorium. In 1990, after a lengthy media campaign pitting animal-rights activists against hunter-conservationists, California voters passed Proposition 117, the California Wildlife Protection Act, which permanently banned lion hunting.

Yet, in spite of the growing problem of lions ''interfacing'' with humans, pets and livestock, any effort to reintroduce the hunting of cougars touches off friction between animal protectionists and representatives of the hunting community, such as Safari Club International and the National Rifle Association. Those two groups tried to restore hunting in 1996 through another public referendum, following the deaths of two female hikers in separate attacks. That initiative failed. But, with a cougar population that appears increasingly difficult to control, it may be time for another.

Long assumed to be denizens of rugged wilderness areas, cougars, faced with ever-increasing human development encroaching on their habitat, today are likely to be lurking alarmingly close to home. The nearest dwellings were a mere half-mile from the ''wilderness'' trail where the latest attacks occurred. And Walter Boyce, a professor at the University of California-Davis' Wildlife Health Center, has put radio collars on several mountain lions and tracked them roaming backyards of San Diego's suburbs at night, foraging for food.

New Jersey has had to confront a strikingly similar situation when it comes to black bears. Bear hunting was banned in the Garden State 33 years ago, when the bear population numbered about 100. Today, the population is thought to be as high as 3,000, and the past few years have witnessed a steep upswing in bear-human encounters.

Last year, at least 58 bears broke into houses in New Jersey, and the state Division of Fish and Wildlife received more than 1,300 complaints about problem bears, including one from a hiker who was mugged by a bruin that stole his trail mix, and another from the parents of a two-year-old swatted by a bear that ambled into their yard. While these encounters only resulted in minor injuries, in New York last year a bear knocked a baby out of her stroller and killed her.

As in California, the primary reason for increased bear-human interaction is the encroachment of humans on bear habitat. According to New Jersey Fish and Wildlife Director Marty McHugh, ''There are no deep-woods bears in the state. These bears in the deeper woods areas are ranging out to feed in the suburbs and on the farms.''

Last fall, New Jersey issued more than 5,000 black bear permits to hunters. In December, 328 bears were killed during the six-day hunting season, which New Jersey wildlife officials regarded as a success.

Animal rights activists called the hunt a massacre. Some people objected that hunters did not effectively isolate the ''nuisance'' bears most in need of being removed. Others promoted a contraception program to reduce numbers ''naturally.''

What these critics all tended to miss was the fact that, as a strategy for controlling animal-human interaction, hunting ultimately has less to do with killing than with instilling fear in animals that have begun to see humans as prey. Animals that are hunted are much more wary of their human predators and less willing to risk contact with them.

Would a similar strategy work to decrease cougar attacks in California? The current system there allows wildlife officials to exterminate problem animals -- but, as the latest attacks demonstrate, this can occur only after animals have become problems, often with tragic outcomes. And experts have suggested that the cougar that carried out those attacks, like most of New Jersey's ''nuisance'' bears, was probably perfectly normal.

Hunting would not completely offset the behavioral problems caused by human overdevelopment, but it is an ancient, efficient, way to restore humans to our place in the natural scheme of things. If, in the process, it reminds our feline co-predators that it is not a good idea to put us on their menu, then it is at least (no pun intended) worth a shot.


Mary Zeiss Stange, author of Woman the Hunter, teaches at Skidmore College. She also is a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors

Contender - Great article! I'll be happy when a few more liberals get chewed on and then just maybe they'll leave the task of wildlife management to the game wardens and not Walt Disney and friends! :mad: As for them stalking me - I hope they have a natural immunity to lead poisoning! :D CEJ..

Somebody ought to organize a field outing for all those liberal politicans over there and fill their packpacks with raw bacon and hamburger. Be sure to take their Nike's away from them, first. :D

I'd let 'em keep the nike's, more sporting you know.

Don't know what television show it was (was loading ammo...beats TV any evening) but my wife comes, "You got to see this."

There wasa a lady puting peanut butter on her kid's face...so the animals could lick it off...not pets, animals in a semi-contoled enviroment...bears included.

If you correct your kids behavior, best do it in private...but publicly you can spread bear bait on your children's faces, let predators get a good taste, and the media thinks it's "cute".

There is something fundamentally wrong going on.

Gotta be the disney syndrome. Been watching too much animal planet. My 8 yr old loves that stuff. The other day I showed him a picture of what was left of a guy that got about half ate by a grizzly, just so he could gain a little perspective.

Contender, as always, has started an excellent run! Here in Florida we are having the same problem with gators. Quite some years ago, some of out new residents from out of state, decided they were not seeing enough gators. We Floridians knew the reason was that gator hunting was pushing the big ones far back into the swamps (where they belong)! The hunting of gators was banned. Then we had the new-arrivals feeding gators! The gov't then allowed hunting by permit. We now have gators coming up into people's yards and eating their dogs (children next?). In the wild a gator is a shy fellow and will remove itself for people......unless one is near a nest or starts picking up those "cute" baby gators!
The example is the same....when animals lose their natural fear of man.......they start eating man! The sad thing about the entire deal is...at some point we will start killing them and let them float.
Oh yes.....by the way, only the gov't can buy hides......makes you wonder doesn't it?
We all carry firearms in our boats and if we see a gator coming up for "treats".....he floats!
Best Regards, James

Give a new meaning to the three "S''s...shoot, SINK, shuttup.

Had the pleasure of admiring the Florida gator population last spring. There seemed to be a real bumper crop on the leases I was chasing hogs on. Had one slip under my Kayak that gave me the willynillies. While I was there, some lady was grabbed while trimming her hedge and lost an arm. IT seems a reptile like that would take some persuading to let go.

I think the biggest problem with the folks that want to end hunting or believe that there are hardly any critters left is that they never actually get out where the critters are. They actually believe that the animals are becoming extinct untill one shows up in the yard. Then of course, they want someone to get it out of there, and call on govt animal control. We get a surprising number of complaints about moose in peoples yards. They LOVE to see moose in town, but only if they are in your yard!!

Scotty

Ther was an article in the FL Times-Union about a retiring gator trapper, authorized by the state, who contended that gators were never endangered, and encroachment and habitat shrinkage were and are the problem, as well as idiots feeding them. My brother in law had a neighbor who was feeding a gator next door to him, and the gator built her nest near my brother in law's dock. When my nephews were wading near the shore catching grass shrimp for bait, the gator busted out of the reeds nearby and darn near caught one. Needless to say, that gator was taken care of, but it needn't have happened had the moronic neighbor not fed it.
Along those same lines there was a great article on the wolf reintroduction in MT and ID in the "American Hunter" magazine a couple of months ago. Typical stuff, government bureacrats influenced by environmentalist/animal rights whackos inflicting their ideas of a wilderness utopia without regard to the impact upon those who might live or recreate in the areas involved. There was a reason why the government had bounties on most predators once upon a time.

Most people responding to a thread like this will have very strong opinions on either side of the issue.

Just a friendly reminder to folks not to get too overheated in replies. We try to maintain a nice, even-keel board where all can voice their opinions or thoughts without name calling or flaming.

That said, everyone is encouraged to take a whack at the issue.

In this mornings newspaper in the police report section, a woman in town called to report 2 mt. lions on her front porch looking through the window growling at her children. She by the way is very ANTI gun, but wanted somebody to shoot them!!! I go along with CEJ, ifin it stalks me, it has a chance of getting a leathal dose of lead posioning. :rolleyes: This happen in No. Calif.

Gun Runner

I think if all hunting was stopped for one season, and the Animal lovers were made to go out and clean up the mess of starving and dead animals, most of them would learn that hunting is more humane than watching animals starve to death.

Lee L.

....I'm still trying to figure out how it was decided that you can't kill a bear sow with cubs EVEN IN SELF DEFENSE. Is this really true? In who's eyes is it acceptable for our mothers children to be mauled to death so that a bears children can live?

gun runner - Happy to have you along side me anytime! Sometimes we have to save those fools from themselves! Of course we can wait a little bit until Ma Nature instructs them as to the errors of their ways! :D Glad the kids didn't get hurt by having such a pea brain for a mother! Coldfingers - that's a good twist on a tried and true method! ;) ;) bowtek - I don't think it's illegal to shoot a sow with cubs in defense of your life but even if I'm wrong I'd rather be judged by 12 of you guys than carried by one undertaker with what's left of my remains if I didn't shoot! I haven't had any experience with bears but let me tell you I've had a number of close calls with mama moose and children! :eek: Let me tell you that get's the blood pumping! CEJ..

Only live encounter I had with a moose was when I was a boy out hunting varmits with a .22. Needless to say I showed him what quality shoes sweat shop work can produce...I swear to god if I had a large animal chasing me I could top the worlds fastest mile by a minute.

MightyPirate - I believe you! Then you'd only be about a minute or two behind me from an even start! :D :D Feet's don't fail me now! CEJ..

Guess I'm extraordinarily lucky. Only critter's ever attacked me was a porcupine! :eek:

I did hold the flashlite one time for my girlfriend as she sent a .30-cal bullet in front of a mountain lion that was stalking her horses. She and the horses were quite pleased we never saw the cat again. Dog was disappointed, tho. Dog thot it was great fun!

Seems to me that there needs to be annual culling quotas. I'm not sure open season on mountain lions is going to solve any problems though.....apart from pushing them back to the edge of extinction. I think that the NRA needs to stop grandstanding a little & find a compromise. I'm not anti-gun obviously :D
I support the NRA in most things they do but there needs to be some level headedness I believe, on both sides mind you. The animal rights mob are just as bad. Anyhow flame me if you will.
What always seems weird to me is that the animal rights people don't often have pets. They don't care for a cat or dog, choose its diet, spend big $$$ at the vets & ultimately make the choice of when it's time to meet its maker after a long & dutiful life.
Perhaps a bit of a sweeping statement but one I've found among acquaintances who frequent these style of protests & are members of these lobby groups.
But in terms of culls & how they affect us the question everyone needs to ask is "Am I here to protect mountain bikers or to get a novelty rug/trophy mount?"
Who's infringing on who's environment?
Tough call, eh!
:rolleyes:
Andy

I don't believe anyone over here has objection to limits to the hunting.... it's the norm here for there to be seasons, limits, and in many cases limited numbers of tags issued.

Some states do have open season on the big cats and other predators, mostly states with strong cattle / sheep ranching.

Even in those states, there are plenty of cats and predators, if anything the numbers are increasing.

Don't believe that the lions would be wiped out with a return to a hunting season in California. Unfortunately that's an argument that the anti-hunting crowd will use to prevent any hunting.

So I think that what you are referring to as quotas and what I'm referring to as limits or tags issued is basically the same thing.

kombi1976,
I think that I would like to protect mountain bikers and get a "novelty" rug, as I participate in both mtn. biking and hunting. Having mtn biked in CA,NV and other western states, I never went without a 3" S&W M629 in my handlebar bag, for both two and four legged varmints.
I am curious about your statements that the NRA is "grandstanding" and needs to maintain some "levelheadedness", and come to some consensus about this, and that the NRA and animal rights groups are equivalent somehow. The animal rights groups are out to ELIMINATE hunting and any other use of animals that they deem unfit, which seems to be all uses including pet ownership, I mean if an animal has rights, and is the same as a boy, how can you keep one as a pet? Or so goes their logic." A roach, is a rat, is a boy" is their guiding philosophy, so stated by PETA, the leading animal rights group in the USA. How do you compromise with people like that? The reason that the NRA seems to be so uncompromising is that you cannot compromise on the Bill of Rights, even though we have done so in the name of consensus. The problem is that the opposition is NEVER satisfied with a consensus, they ALWAYS returns for another bite at the apple. No offense meant, but I would think that someone living in Australia, with the draconian firearms prohibitions and confiscations that have happened in the last few years, would be the last person to recommend compromise and consensus.

I agree with you 100%, Mikej and MikeG.

You have to buy a tag (good for one lion anytime during the 12 month tag period) here in Arizona. Lots of folks hunt them, including professional outfitters using dogs. We haven't really made a dent in the lion population, just kept it from exploding. Tough to keep Desert Bighorn sheep and mule deer populations stable, due to lion predation.

I'd hate to see any species disappear from the wild - don't think mt. lion is one to worry about anytime soon!

The biggest problem that I can see in Cali is that the WHOLE process was removed from the province of scientific game management and left to the whims of the general populace through voter initiative.

Under initiative, the more urban counties routinely shoot down passage of any solution to this problem.

This matter should be the province of game managers, period.

This illustrates the double-edged sword of initiative and referendum. While it may seem attractive, direct democracy can backfire as this case/situation demonstrates.

Regards

The situation here in Saskatchewan is a bit peculiar. Since we don't officially don't have any cougars, the unofficial position is that, since there's no season, you can't shoot them. However, any cougar attacking livestock is fair game. I know of an attack on a pig and a sheep within 10 miles of here in the last 20 years. The provincial museum published a book about 20 years with 139 reported sightings.

Bye
Jack

The situation here in Saskatchewan is a bit peculiar. Since we don't officially don't have any cougars, the unofficial position is that, since there's no season, you can't shoot them. However, any cougar attacking livestock is fair game. I know of an attack on a pig and a sheep within 10 miles of here in the last 20 years. The provincial museum published a book about 20 years with 139 reported sightings.

Bye
Jack
I suppose you could use the rational that you can't be prosecuted for hunting and shooting something that doesn't officially exist! That would be like trying to prosecute for murder when there is no body.

Here I go again.....
Perhaps I should've described "level-headedness" as "political expediency".
The anti-hunting crowd are crazy. Problem is, a number of people see the NRA as equally crazy. That don't see the fine print or long term policies, they just witness the exchange of hyperbole(even if it isn't hyperbole), not a positive thing for any movement.
We suffer the same probs here.
The guys who do the most damage never get in the gun rights movement & aren't responsible owners.
Problem is our laws are stricter.
My point is there's more than one way to skin a cat & that perhaps there are other ways of getting there point across.
I hope I haven't offended anyone.
:)
Cheers & God Bless
Andy

I just gotta jump in on this one.You can see I'm in Texas,well we have a lake called Possum Kingdom where rich folks retire and try to be friends with wild animals,feed deer in the front yard ect.We hang out at the camp grounds with normal an try to go eat without running over these pets(?)that run wild all over,you see them dead in the road,beside the road and dragging themselfs off the road.I dont get it.

Is the Texas Parks & Wildlife department still doing hunts in the fall to thin out the deer herd? Have been thinking of applying to some of those but never seem to get around to it in time.....

We have mountain lions pretty well throughout Wyoming. Last year one wandered into Laramie (Pop. 25,000) and ended up killed by law enforcement after it got itself dead-ended in a residential neighborhood.

In 1998 I bought a tag thinking I would do some snow tracking after big game seasons closed. A 3 yr. old female lion came in to check me out while I was cow calling for elk. I don't know if I was really in any danger, but she did stalk me.

She was in good shape but her stomach was empty. Most likely she was simply hunting and there I was, hiding in the brush making noises like an elk. We had time for a good eyeball-to-eyeball stare down. She did not turn and run even after fully seeing me. Maybe I was the first human contact. Hard to tell.

With a tag in my pocket and a 35 Whelen in my hands, the tables were turned. Now I have a nice rug mount hanging above my desk and a skull on the bookshelf.

Likely I will never see another one but they are certainly present throughout my elk and deer hunting areas. Without a tag in my pocket I wouldn't shoot one unless I was convinced that attack was imminent.

JackMonteith,
We have a similar problem in NE FL. According to the DNR, Florida Panthers (cougar) do not exist in NE FL. One of my hunting buddies lives up near my hunting club, which is right across the St. Mary's River from the Okeefenokee Swamp. he saw a panther trying to get into the pen where he keeps his livestock, and scared it away with some well placed shots. The next day he called DNR and they claimed that panthers didn't exist where he lives. He then asked them if they would fine/jail him if he shot the nonexistent panther, and they said of course, shooting panthers is illegal. He finally got them to come out and photgraph/cast the pugmarks left by the cat. So I guess we do have panters in NE FL.



kombi76,
As far as I'm concerned, there is no room for compromise or political expediency when it comes to the Bill of Rights. Unfortunately, such politically expedient compromises have gotten us to where we are today. When the opposition has publicly stated that their goal is to destroy you, compromise just slows the process. This is true in every form of conflict; e.g., the Arab-Isreali conflict, the War on Terror, and the culture war with the left that is an ongoing political struggle in all democracies. Some have advanced further along the path to serfdom than others, and I for one desire to fight back with every means at my disposal, preferably peaceful, but otherwise if necessary. Just my viewpoint, and I'm sure everyone has his own.

....I'm still trying to figure out how it was decided that you can't kill a bear sow with cubs EVEN IN SELF DEFENSE. Is this really true? In who's eyes is it acceptable for our mothers children to be mauled to death so that a bears children can live?
Some of man's laws were meant to be broken.
I may assure that I wouldn't hesitate to fill a mother bear full of lead if one charged me or others nearby.

I am reminded of an article I read last year. It seems a noted "Bear expert" and his girlfriend went on an expidition in Alaska to study and Photograph some Kodiac bears. When the bush pilot came back later to pick them up a bear was sitting on top of what was left of them eating lunch. The sad thing is they probably killed the bear. When people crowd wild animals conflicts are certain.

I see plenty of alligators down here. I am not overly afraid of them but I do give them a lot of room. I would not hesitate to defend my self, but a little common sense can save a lot of grief.

Killig the animals isn't always the answer.

The Alaska case you are referring to was documented here pretty well. Do a search for "Treadwell" and it should take you to the threads.

2 bears were killed when they charged USFWS or ADFG officers trying to recover the bodies. The stomach contents of one of the bears did contain remains of Treadwell and his girlfriend.

Personally I think the late Tim Treadwell was a danger to society as he often preached of the "peacefulness" of the great bears, and that humans should not fear the beasts. He played his bet and lost everything.

Contender

We have the same discussion here in Idaho about the re-intorduction of the Grizzly bear and the Wolf re-intoroduction. Being handi-capped I can't backpack into the back country like I used to, but, My son and his 10 and 11 years olds do.

He carries a Redhawk 5 inch with potent handloads. Though he is a law abiding citizen and concerned with wildlife re-introduction like me I doubt he would stand by and let any animal harm himself or the children.

Much of the country we live in and hunt and fish in now has wolf and cat and bear populations exceeding just 25 to 50 years ago. Some of this can be attributed to the cost of hunting going up.

I know that many of my friends whom maintained dogs for cat and bear hunting no longer do because of the cost. i.e. vet bills, feeding and maintaing 4 to 10 good hounds has became very expensive.

Hunting in general has declined. Used to be a lot of hunters, folks whom took delight in stalking, finding and harvesting game. Now it appears we have a predominence of "Shooters", folks whom love the shooting end of the spectrum but are not quite "hunters".

They got all the latest whiz bang super long range ultra-mag rifles topped with 2-27 power scopes, with the micro adjustable bipods and laminated thumbhole stocks built on the moon. Their desire is to shoot that little deer at 1700 yards. They spend hours getting the target knobs adjusted so they can dial in any range up to 2000 yards for that one shot kill.

Now I'm not putting down the shooter's even though it does kinda look that way, but, hunting for technology's sake is at least getting out in the woods and hunting.

I think you will find more hunters using medium bores at closer ranges and killing more game than the folks with the whiz bang magnums.

So the crux of the large predetor situation is that there are more of them and that causes more interaction with folks. As long as that situation exists folks stand the chance of being hurt by these animals.

I worked for a big land sales company whom developed about 33000 acres of land down by Whitebird Idaho. The ground started at the Salmon River, went up over the Dumac plains and back down to the Snake river. They broke it up into 10 to 40 acre plots. Put in house sites, roads etc.

You could see it advertised in Field and Stream and other mags like that. Sold like hotcakes. Mostly folks from out of state buying that Idaho wilderness dream land for retirement.

I was the maintenance supervisor for this property. Got to mow the grass, and keep the plumbing working on seven of the ex-working cattle and sheep ranch's still on the property.

I saw more bear and couger's in that two year period working there than I had seen in 40 years of hunting my native Idaho.

One thing for sure is it was a great sales gimmic to take buyers up on the plains and see severel bear or couger right on the land they were going to buy.

Well they sold it all and the bear and the couger and deer and elk and wolves and the folks that bought it are still there. A lot of them are learning that those wonderful critters are not near as much fun in their back yard as they was when they viewed the property.

Sorry about the long ramble. You just got to bear, no pun intended. with us old folks

What I don't understand about the folks who want all hunting stopped is how in their minds they believe that "nature" exists outside of their lives and therefore they somehow assume that people and animals live on two different planets. They want animals "completely" left alone but at the same time want ever expanding coffee houses, tract homes, and city scapes pushing into the "wilderness". It's hard for me to even explain...I expect they would somehow even try to think of someway to get animals to stop eating each other. Don't get me wrong, I'm not crazy about corporate farming or some company spraying shaving cream into the eyes of animals to make sure the extra "skin softners" won't hurt me but anti-hunting is anti-logic, anti-intelligence. People seem to have come to the conclusion that people belong only on concrete and that human beings somehow exist seperate of animals. It just blows my mind...just makes me speechless.

In the MI UP they actaully say the big cats don't exist either, even after people vidoe tape them in their yards. Nope, don't exist...and this is the Department of Natural Resources telling people this. It's nuts I tell you, nuts.

As for me, I realize that bears and cougers, gators and moose, and all sorts of animals for that matter might just look at me and see a threat or a meal and you'd best believe I'll try to make sure it's them buying the farm before me. Who am I to think that I can reason with a wild animal or better yet that they should somehow bow before me because I am a human.

I want to see some anti out in the woods lined up with a big bear saying "Ignore your hunger grizzley bear, for I am human and with superior intellect. I want only to defend you from predators. Now move on and enjoy your life and I shall pass unharmed." Yeah, that would be pretty funny.