Is South Dakota killing too many lions?

A report from the Black Hills Mountain Lion Foundation after their September 18th educational seminar “Mountain Lions in the Black Hills: Facts and Fiction” presented by wildlife biologist Dr. John Laundre.

By increasing hunting quotas the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks department may threaten the viability of the state’s mountain lion population, according to a wildlife biologist who has studied cougars for more than 20 years. Adjunct professor in the State University of New York at Oswego biology department, Dr. John Laundre was the keynote speaker at Mountain Lions in the Black Hills: Facts and Fiction, an educational seminar sponsored by the Black Hills Mountain Lion Foundation. Laundre labeled the agency’s lion statistics “not biologically honest” and warned that overhunting could have a devastating impact on the lion population and lead to a loss of its ecological functionality. GF & P plans to increase the total harvest from 40 to 45 and the female sub-quota from 25 to 30 as part of its proposed 2010-2015 mountain lion management plan. An additional season with a quota of five lions has been proposed for Custer state park. Laundre pointed out that GF & P’s estimate of approximately 250 cougars in the state is misleading because only about 160 would be adult animals and most of the immature cats will disperse to other areas. Because it is uncertain how many females are in the population and how many kittens survive each year the total number of lions may be considerably lower than GF & P estimates, Laundre said.

Dr. John Laundre holding two mountain lion kittens

The wildlife biologist, who also serves as vice-president of the Eastern Cougar Foundation, has conducted research on wolves and elk in Yellowstone National Park, cougar predation on mule deer in Idaho and pumas in the Chihuahuan desert. Laundre complimented GF & P for its “holistic guiding philosophy” regarding the return of mountain lions to the Black Hills and its progressive views on their role in ecosystems but urged the agency to rework its figures using a wider range of data.

Laundre explained how mountain lions and other top predators help restore the ecological integrity of forests. He said that the removal of large carnivores from the country’s eastern and southern forests have resulted in the disappearance of many varieties of both flora and fauna due to unchecked browsing by white-tailed deer. “Deer are instigating… the most massive change in forest habitat since uncontrolled logging in our early history,” the scientist said. “In some areas, the deer have cleared the woods of most of the plant varieties that once grew there. Lack of sufficient ground cover in turn leads to a decline in song birds that depend on the vegetation for nest building. Mountain lions and other large predators promote forest integrity not because they kill deer,” Laundre said, “but because of the effect they have on deer they don’t kill.” Cougars hunt by ambush and prefer areas where there is sufficient cover. Deer learn where lions are likely to prowl and tend to avoid those areas, which ensures the survival of plant species that the ungulates otherwise would eradicate.

Photo courtesy of the Mountain Lion Foundation

Laundre does not believe that it is necessary to cut lion numbers to preserve deer for human hunters. “Cougars just are not efficient enough as hunters to impact deer populations.” He estimated that predators and human hunters together typically remove about 12 per cent of the deer population every year, a tolerable reduction from which the cervines quickly recover. An avid deer hunter, Laundre said that sportsmen commonly blame predators, including cougars, when deer numbers are down, but heavy snowfalls are more likely to cause severe declines. He added that “hunting is not supposed to be like shopping at the supermarket.” It is a sport which involves elements of chance and skill.

Finally, the wildlife researcher said that although lions are powerful carnivores they rarely attack human beings. “It is more dangerous to walk the streets in any U. S. city at night than it is to hike or live in an area with mountain lions,” he said. Laundre presented slides depicting his work, including one in which he held three squirming cougar kittens. He related that during his years of research work he never was threatened by a wild cougar even when he snatched up and examined its babies.

The Black Hills Mountain Lion Foundation was created in 2003 after South Dakota removed the cougar from the state’s threatened species list and identified it as a big game animal. Our goals are to inform the public about mountain lion behavior and their importance to our ecosystem, help reduce human-lion conflicts, and fight for the preservation of these animals on their natural landscape. We support mountain lion management that is based on peer-reviewed science and encourage efforts to prevent habitat loss and fragmentation. For more information, email us at bhsdlions@yahoo.com or visit our website at www.blackhillslions.com.