study on predation on deer ( fawns ) in north kings prior to 1990 ban
Interesting article done by the Dept. of Agriculture/Forest Service. This is not a person claiming that predation is a problem without factual evidence, it is a scientific research article using radio collar's on fawns to highlight the cause of death in adolescent deer. I know it is an older article but is still relevant because it shows that even prior to the ban it was shown that mountain lions were a huge reason for a decline in the north kings herd. here's the link, post your thoughts
http://www.sustainablewildlife.org/u...rra_Nevada.pdf
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. Numbers and science usually do a good job of distinguishing between fact and fiction.
Thanks for posting. This was an interesting read. Of course, the numbers would be even worse if monitored honestly over the past 20 years. Before long, there will be more lions than deer. Well, that'll make the liberals happy.
"Democracy ends when the government takes from those willing to work and gives to those who aren't" Thomas Jefferson.
“There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.” John Adams 1826
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin
I am glad all of this talk gets plastered all over the web, just hope all the people that voted for it to pass get a good look at what they did and are doing to our fragile ecosystem, and the countless poor little fawn's that will die a slow death, and eventually the big cat's. Hope all you ill informed people are happy, bunch of dumb ass's.
Great article, I have been researching this on my own and its the same across the state. We as hunters need to take our great state back from the people who only make decisions based on political agenda. Mountain lion numbers need to be controlled and I am calling out the DFG to lead the way in re-opening a season
"Computer modeling of the North Kings deer population indicated that the elimination of mountain lion predation alone would reverse the downward trend in the herd if all other factors remained the same (Neal 1985). This model did not consider the probability of increased loss to other predators but still serves to the illustrate the importance of mountain lion predation in the dynamics of this herd. No other single factor in the model would reverse the downward trend."
You know what a predator will do when cornered? I think we as hunters are cornered. Just saying...
The really interesting thing is this study is contrary to what the California DFG has been espousing.
Last edited by Bubblehide; 06-10-2012 at 08:55 PM.
I am hoping that the lions will eat up all the hippies and their vermin offspring who are anti-hunting as well as anti-gun and anti-dam building as well.
For that we actually need more lions not less.
Unfortunately the collateral damage to the so-called-conservative element will likely include a few republicans as well.
Everything has its price.
Last edited by Shoobee; 06-10-2012 at 09:26 PM.
eh Shoobee, I tend to be anti-dam building. I'm no hippie but I believe that we need to maintain a habitat for our ocean going species. Isn't that the whole reason we want to get the ban lifted on lions? in order to reestablish a habitat for deer to propagate and thrive? I'm a hunter but I also enjoy the environment and the outdoors not just killing things. Having Lions around is fine, allowing them to completely take over our wilderness areas and decimate all populations with no means of controlling the population is arrogant.
I did some research on the economical value of hunters in the state of California, you should look it up if you are interested. The fact is hunters pay a lot of money to chase deer in this state and we see no progress towards habitat restoration ( or very little ) so the first question is where are those hundreds of millions of dollars ( a year ) going? We need someone to inform the people don't live in the country or hunt that visiting Yosemite and seeing deer is nice, but it won't last much longer when the ratio of deer to lion is so far below what it should be and that our population is rapidly decreasing. ( article : 200:1 deer:lion is the minimum to sustain a population.. some statistics i saw were as low as 30:1 these days ).
30:1 is very, very low. scary. i believe everything has it's place in a healthy ecosystem, including predators. However, if the predators never become prey, they too lose out as they run the risk of eating themselves out of house and home so to speak. I'm not a big predator hunter but controlling populations of lions so that it doesn't harm other animal populations or completely desecrate other animal populations seems quite logical. I can just see it now. "Ah, look at the beautiful mtn. lions kids. They're in our campsite because they ran out of food. Isn't it great!"
It is an interesting study but it is very old and out of date.
My thoughts are that lions are a big part of the deer herd decline but not even close to the whole story. Other factors would include loss of habitat to increased urban sprawl and density, increased rural land usage including livestock and cultivation resulting in loss of food sources, loss of migratory routes by fencing and roads, drought, disease (CWD and the like), improper herd cull and management (buck only hunting), and finally high hunting pressure in areas where herds are very low in population.
It's not just the cougars. It's us too. Remember WE are predators and each year WE harvest tens of thousands of deer. In order to promote healthy herds we need to get in line with PROPER GAME MANAGEMENT. That includes limiting tags for certain areas, getting rid of the lion hunting ban, promoting the fact that proper game management includes hunting as a part of conservation to the gen public so that they understand we're not just "bambi killers." Finally, we need to stop the PC attitude on the part of politicians as well as the public/media which shows up in silly ways like in the current flap over whether it is ethical for a California F&G director to LAWFULLY hunt mtn lions in another State. Making ultimate decisions about a fragile ecology because of emotion is STUPID yet it seems that is all the State is doing these days.
As far as dams and such, it's been well proven that dams have a negative effect on fisheries and the overall environment in EVERY stream/river that's been impounded. Whether there are better ways to do this or not is something I do not know. I DO know that a one-size-fits-all approach is no better than the attitude of the tree huggers and PETA who would ban everything they feel is "ugly." We need to remember that it's about conservation. Not "my way is better than your way."
Well, there was a bump, a thump, a cloud of dust, and the smell of turnips wafting through the air...
We need more dams. Especially in California where we are exceeding our water supplies already and megatons of river water is running out to sea and wasted all the time.Originally Posted by AmadorJames
They can build fish ladders around the dams for the pole fishermen and for the salmon. They know how.
Last edited by Shoobee; 06-11-2012 at 11:34 AM.
Uh Rob p. I totally agree with what you are saying, I understand it is a multifaceted issue but your comment on us being predators and our harvest may be a little off. Statistics on the DFG site show that 174,416 tags were issued in 2010 and only 14,817 were filled/reported. DFG estimates roughly double this is the actual amount of deer killed during season and show an estimation of 26,425 deer killed. Without including poachers one cannot argue that humans are harvesting more deer in California at this time than Lions. If we only had 6,000 mountain lions in the whole state ( late 80's estimate ) then your telling me those mountain lions are consuming less than 4 deer a year? no.
Sorry had to bring that up. Everything else I agree with Rob, The lack of early seral forests/deer feeding grounds is a huge issue that has to do with logging policies ( my father was a logger and I am for logging the issues are not with cutting down the trees but what happens after we cut the trees down ) as well as lack of personnel to target the poaching problem in certain areas of the state are huge issues that need to be dealt with. In the meantime, I believe that adding mountain lion hunts would improve deer herds in a short period of time by increasing the deer to predator ratio.
AJ, thanks for your PM. Just as there are those (even here) who blame everything on the boogieman-liberal(s) (whoever that actually might be, not sure), I tend to blame everything on the boogieman-hippies and their vermin offspring. Whether a so-called-conservative (whatever that is, since nothing much has been conserved since before Reagan) or a so-called liberal, the hippies vote and are activist either way, and that Reep or Demo has little to do with who is obstructing dam construction. If California does not start building some new ones or expanding some old ones soon it will never get a chance again because its credit rating is getting so bad no one will eventually buy the financing bonds to support it. Rich hippies probably vote Reep for the tax cuts. Poor hippies probably vote Demo for the food stamps and the cannibis.
With lions taking over the hills and mountains, there will be a lot less venison left for California hunters. There is no fixing that problem. Only 25% of Californians even own a gun at all, and only about 1 million Californians hunt. Such a small minority that it does not matter what we think or how we vote.
Without more dams, or enlarging our current dams, California is heading for a major water crisis as well. For which there will be no solutions. From which the utility companies will simply get more revenues from the gullible hippie public, under the guise of conservation, a notion and buzz word popular among the hippie population of California.
You can smoke that pipe, and you can dream that pipe dream, but it aint going to bring any more water out your water faucet.
Nice job on your deer analysis though. I suspect there are more lion kills than the DFG has computed. And I am not surprised the lion population is growing.
I am surprised that the hunter population is staying steady, even with less deer harvested each year. Just proves we are all addicted to hunting for venison.
It seems to me that poaching is a red herring however. Anytime DFG catches even a minor violation they call it poaching. I have always had good interactions with the DFG wardens however. Since I never load my rifle until I am out of my vehicle, they have never had to give me grief about that. Since I always have tags and a license, they have never had to give me grief about that. Since I only shoot 2x2's or 3x3's they have never had to give me grief about a forked-horn. Plus where I hunt there are no roads, so I rarely if ever even see a DFG warden when I hunt.
Once I was hiking out, and I met this lovely DFG lady warden, and she chit chatted with me. This was around Lions Den in Zone A South near Salmon Creek in the Los Padres NF. We compared notes on mountain lions. She said she was surprised that I backpack into such remote areas alone. I told her I was surprised that such a lovely lady as she has such a dangerous job and patrols alone too. She said the DFG is short handed.
I worry about lions enough to carry 2 knives and a machete. The only way to get one off you is with a blade of some kind once they attach themselves like a tick to your neck.
Good hunting, my friend, and watch out for the lions. You are more right (about the lions) than you can imagine.
Last edited by Shoobee; 06-11-2012 at 03:06 PM.
Ok, it's old info...we knew that going in. So let's use newer info from DFG and their "scientists". There are only 6,000 cats, which is a number they have been spouting for 10 years now (I guess they don't reproduce). Supposedly, again according to the scientists, a cat will kill a deer each week. If so, that's over 300,000 EACH YEAR! Let's say their estimate is high. If it's even half that number, cats are taking ten times as many deer as we legal hunters.
Are cats the ONLY reason for the massive decline in deer numbers? Of course not, but they are the major reason...by far.
Last edited by MULEY51; 06-11-2012 at 03:03 PM.
"Democracy ends when the government takes from those willing to work and gives to those who aren't" Thomas Jefferson.
“There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.” John Adams 1826
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin
Call em out again? The CADFG is responsible for not opposing the mtn lion proposition in the first place. They cant even secure decent winter ranges. They claim to have 0 control of forest service timber practices. Currently they are sleeping with the enemy of CA sportsmen, the HSUSA. With regards to the CADFG, theyre real good at taking our money. By them sleeping with the enemy, they can kiss off future "money grabs" from my pocket , as Im trimming my funds to CADFG.
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