At last, some perspective in today's SF Chronicle:
Killing mountain lions has long been state's role
Tom Stienstra
The most charged debate over hunting ethics and fair chase in California since the mid-1990s is much the same as it was in 1996: How can someone shoot a mountain lion out of a tree?
In a similar debate that year, voters defeated Proposition 197 by a ratio of 58 percent to 42 percent, blocking a proposal to allow mountain lion hunting in California.
That is almost the same ratio, 56 percent to 44 percent, as of late Thursday of the poll at
www.sfgate.com/polls, which asked, "Should Daniel Richards be removed as Fish & Game Commission president?"
Richards hunted and killed a mountain lion in January in Idaho, where it is legal. Since a trophy kill photo was published at Western Outdoor News (WONews.com), a debate has been raging about whether Richards is fit to serve as Fish and Game Commission president.
Many are asking: How are we even in this position?
The answer lies in the shifting of population to cities over the past 100 years and, with it, the balance of power. With that shift has come a change in how lions are perceived and managed.
In 1907, the Legislature ordered the Department of Fish and Game to place a $20 bounty on mountain lions. In 1914, it was raised to $30 for females and in 1945 raised again to $50 for males and $60 for females. In addition, 18 counties paid a bonus on top of it. The bounty was ended in 1963.
In the 57 years it was in effect, state bounty money was paid out on 12,461 mountain lions.
The program was so important to maintaining the health of deer herds and protecting livestock that in 1948, Fish and Game hired five full-time lion hunters and 40 trappers to help implement it, according to the late Dick Weaver, a Fish and Game wildlife scientist and historian.
The mountain lion was classified as a game mammal in 1966. After 35 were killed in the 1970 hunting season and 83 in the 1971 season, the "shooting-them-out-of-a-tree" debate sparked public outrage.
For the first time, the focus swung to hunter ethics and fair chase and away from damage caused by lion predation.
During the 1971 season, Gov. Ronald Reagan signed a moratorium. In 1990, Proposition 117 made the ban permanent, winning 52 percent to 48 percent in a split defined by urban versus rural voters. The public upheld that decision in 1996 with Prop. 197.
While lions are abundant, and not threatened or endangered, that ballot initiative declared the lions "a specially protected mammal."
Even with the ban, 2,157 mountain lions were killed from 1990 to 2009 through depredation permits and for public safety, according to the Department of Fish and Game.
Tom Stienstra is The San Francisco Chronicle's outdoors writer.
SF Chronicle Read more:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/01/MNGI1NF199.DTL#ixzz1nynAyfN9
