Breaking News: Nevada To Kill Lions To Save Deer

[nastygunz]

Breaking News: Nevada To Kill Lions To Save Deer
2/17/2009


The Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners told agency staff last week to employ the help of sport hunters and contract employees from the U.S. Agriculture Department's Wildlife Services for the state wildlife department's new "program of intensive, sustained predator reduction," the Associated Press is reporting.

The number of lions to be killed has yet to be determined, but Ken Mayer, director of the Nevada Department of Wildlife, has said that his agency would use science to make those determinations based on where deer populations have been adversely affected the predators.

"It's not an effort to exterminate mountain lions," Mayer told the Associated Press. "It's an effort to better manage lions with the prey base. Some hunters think the solution to the deer problem is to kill a lot of lions and the deer will come back."

Nevada's deer population has fallen from an estimated 240,000 animals in 1988 to 108,000 last year. The current lion population is believed to be between 1,500 and 2,400 lions.

The state already conducts a hunting season for lions, limited by a defined quota each year. The coming season's quota is set for 306 tags beginning March 1. The bag limit has been increased for each hunter from two to three lions.

Animal rights activists are reportedly angered at the policy. Such groups have continued to decry the killing of lions throughout the West even as other animal populations suffer and the number of attacks humans and pets continue to climb. But hunters are encouraged by the news.

"The rapid rise in mountain lion populations is the single biggest cause of the diminishing mule deer populations out West. As one who owns a large ranch, I have seen firsthand what happens to healthy deer populations when just one or two lions move into the area. Nevada is one of the first states to acknowledge this and I applaud their willingness to do something about," writes Ralph Lermayer, editor of Predator Xtreme magazine. "Unfortunately, as with the wolf populations, the anti-hunting community will marshal their forces and lobby against this, filing multiple lawsuits and generally standing in the way of sound game management. That will delay or stop implementation, and the deer herds will soon drop to a level where their recovery is impossible. A sad state of affairs, but unless sportsmen align together and support these sound management plans, that's what will happen."

Wildlife commissioner Scott Raine told the AP no one was trying to eliminate the population of mountain lions. He cited studies that showed lions eat one "deer-size" animal a week.

"We just want to bring them down to a reasonable number, a sustainable number. Otherwise, deer will continue to die off," Raines, who is a hunter, told the news agency.

[wvhillbillyhowler]

Lets get to killen