Hello Scott:<P>Well, to me the answer is all a matter of perspective in that, is this a sporting proposition, or a business proposition.<P>It seems to me that your friend's livelihood depends upon the cattle, and the cougars are therefore threatening/harming her livelihood. That is more a business proposition. If it were my cattle and this were the case, I'd bait 'em, poison 'em, spotlight 'em, hound 'em and shoot'em on sight. Even then the chances of getting rid of them is, well, small. The best you can hope for is to discourage them from this particular beef buffet.<P>In my experience, and from what I know about politics in the NW, the the gov will do more to protect the damn lions than to protect your friend's livelihood. Sad but true. So an aggressive, proactive approach is the only one with a realistic chance of succeeding. <P>This type of approach is a personal decision, to be sure, and it may not be the right choice for everyone, but if those cougars set up shop on that herd, they could do a lot of damage before it's all over, especially during calving!<P>As to actually hunting them according to all the rules, good luck making any impact on her problem. You have the initial practical issue of assembling enough hunters who actually hold a tag to hunt her spread, permission from surrounding spreads, then the daunting challenge of filling those tags w/o the use of hounds. Calling is great fun, etc., but there is no way that anyone is going to methodically call and shoot a family of mountain lions, especially in a limited season.<P>Nope, the sporting angle is just that, sporting. It presupposes harvesting a surplus of the population and leaving a base population intact. It sounds like your friend may have a different ... perspective.<P>Wish the news was better.<P>Teach<P>