The site remains available for viewing and we invite you to read the material submitted during the project and to contact the Mountain Lion Foundation or any of the Partner Organizations.

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Celebrating the American Lion was an ad hoc coalition of conservation organizations and individuals joined together to celebrate and promote the American lion.  Our goal is to raise the national awareness of the plight facing lions in America today and to showcase the advocacy and public education work of the coalition’s partner organizations.

While the organizations participating in CTAL can, and sometimes do, differ in their approaches to specific issues, they all share the common goal of advocating for mountain lions in America.

The following discussion comments were posted by OreCAT on the Democrat Herald newspaper website in response to the October 23rd article, “Mailbag: A Cougar Story“

Photo courtesy of the Mountain Lion Foundation

We have an epidemic of greed and ignorance, not cougars.  Asalways just before State Legislature, we hear about cougars.  They are not forgotten because to kill a cougar means money for the hounds men.  Up to $6000 per dog and $12,000 per hunt.  They want their dogs back and exploiting cougar in the news and keeping people ignorant about them, is an effort to pass a Bill to use hounds to kill cougar here in Oregon.  Because cougar are extinct in 36 States of the Union primarily from “sport” hunting, Oregon Cougar Action Team a not-for-profit 501c3 was started to help protect Oregon’s Cougar.  Their website is:  www.OreCat.org and they offer for free community presentations and volumes of free downloadable documents regarding non-lethal protection of livestock such as predator pen building programs and more. One document alone is over 20 pages of valuable information.   Tax payer dollars regarding poor livestock management are reduced when OreCat’s documents are used to protect livestock from cougar.  This cougar did not have to die a terrible death in a trap.  The goats did not have to fall victim to poor livestock management that made them vulnerable. Livestock should never be a turnkey operation.  Oregonians cannot afford to live in ignorance about their cougar and according to OSU, the Smithsonian, Dr. Jane Goodall and many more, we cannot afford to have our cougar so poorly cared for.  There is no sustainable plan for orphaned cubs, and they are treated as vermin and either left to die or are raised in captivity and eventually released near public and livestock.  Read Ron Baker’s book, “The American Hunting Myth”, and get the DVD influenced by Professor William Ripples research, “Lords Of Nature, Life In The Land Of Great Predators” www.LordsOfNature.org.  Join OreCat to help save Oregon’s cougar from greed and ignorance.

A journal entry from OreCAT Director Jayne Miller after attending last night’s Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) town hall meeting in Corvallis about cougar.

September 29th, 2010

ODFW Cougar Ecology by Dr. Jackson

Corvallis, Oregon

Krystal and Moon drove all the way from Grants Pass to attend this meeting with me.  There were about 100 people there, hunters of course sat in the back, except for one hunter supporter who made her distaste for my questions known by hitting me in the back several times with her fist.  This kind of assault from hunters is disturbing.  And sitting in front of me was a female ODFW officer who tried to scare me by repeatedly turning in her chair and staring at me and calling me rude because I asked  questions such as issues about no wildlife corridors, or why so many strategic positions are  vacant at ODFW such as the Hunter Reporting Big Game Statistics, or if Dr. Jackson was soft peddling overturning M18 in order to support killing cougar with hounds because he talked about this so much.  They recently filled the Carnivore Species Coordinator, but still vacant are Wildlife Corridor/Linkages Coordinator, and Conservation Strategy Coordinator.

At the meeting Dr. Jackson stated that ODFW research showed that more cougar are poached than taken legally.  Cougars killed due to complaints (including just seeing them) are the same amount as taken legally.  Dr. Jackson could not give an answer why mother cougars are allowed to be killed and why there is no humane plan for the cubs.  After M18 ODFW started selling more cougar tags and are not limited as before M18.

ODFW study information on collard cats was very enlightening and spoke to the impact that humans have on cougar mortality.  When talking about how many tags to sell, 32% of cougar are poached, 27% are killed legally, 27% are killed from conflict, for a total of 86% of cougars killed by humans.  When tags are sold, only the legal percent are considered and not the other human caused deaths..  So again, the numbers are wrong when you leave out all the formulas.  When you’re making cougar management policy that is based on only a small section of the data, you’re making a bad policy.  Cougars killed by natural causes:  37% from other cougars, 31% from disease, 20% from parasites, and 11% from injury.  It is disturbing to learn that cougar weights are down to 133 pounds for males, and 82 pounds for females.  Deer are much smaller now too.  Seems human predators are damaging our wildlife.  Males use to weight 150 pounds and females 120 pounds.

Dr. Jackson did not have an answer when told that Dr. Jane Goodall, The Smithsonian, and other world famous biologists do not support Oregon’s Cougar Management Plan as accurate or good. He stated that ODFW believed it was good, but I asked him if that were so, why did ODFW not correct at least the Smithsonian article referencing our bad plan?

Dr. Jackson’s graphs were interesting.  We could then see that the assumption that young dispersing cougars that had been raised by their mothers and not orphaned from hunting were NOT causing the conflicts.  ODFW assumed there would be a big influx of conflicts when cougar left their mothers, but shown on the graphs, this was not the case.  Cougars orphaned from hunting their mothers were the conflict issues.  Hunting and killing cougar for sport makes it unsafe for humans, livestock, pets and wildlife.

In California where hunting has been banned for decades, they have one of the lowest livestock loss rates due to cougar of any State with cougar in the Union.   Mountain Lion Foundation has received an award from the Governor of California for the outstanding work they have performed regarding helping Californians co-exist with cougar.  See www.Mountainlion.org.

For good scientific information read:  “Cougar, The American Lion” by Kevin Hansen.

For insights as to the driving economic factors of killing animals for fun, read: “The American Hunting Myth”, by Ron Baker.

“In the absence of hunting by humans, cougar populations will remain relatively constant and the unhunted cougar population in California area was relatively stable and with a low turnover of residence” see page 31 from the book “Cougar, The American Lion.”  Where as in Dr. Jackson’s review of Oregon’s cougar studies, too many of the collared cats where killed and only their unbuckled and removed collars were left.

Krystal asked Dr. Jackson why it was ok to kill a mother cougar (as mentioned above) with dependent young that can’t live without her, but bear with cubs and deer with fawn or other mothers can’t be killed.  Dr. Jackson could not answer this question and asked someone in the crowd if they were there and could answer our question.  That person was not present and even though Dr Jackson did the study and has a doctorate;  he could not answer the question what so ever.

Best I can say about this meeting is that the hunters can be violent against those who want to protect cougar and ODFW has room for improvement.  Dr. Jackson was however, a very pleasant person and I enjoyed his presentation and his kindness towards me. Regardless of the hunters’ distractions and assault of me, Dr. Jackson did a good job.

Jayne Miller

Oregon Cougar Action Team
www.OreCAT.org