Predators' plight

The puma is an example of nature
coming into conflict with civilization.

Civilization and nature are two words that people often think of as in opposition of each other.

The recent animal attacks on children in the last couple of months in the U.S. — a 2-year-old boy killed by an alligator at Disney World in Florida and a 5-year-old boy attacked by a cougar near Aspen, Colorado — exemplify that.

In both cases, not only were the attacking animals killed, but several others as well.

But if you look deeper into it, there's several reasons why these conflicts happen.

As far as the alligator, it's an example of human beings infringing on the alligators' territory. The alligators were here first, thousands of year before the first human even crossed the land bridge at the Bering Strait. We can't blame the alligators for being alligators. They prey on things that get to close to the water, that's how they've survived through countless millennium.

The mountain lion is another example of the conflict.

It's not for a reason that has to do with human endangerment or overpopulation.

Humans are infringing on the mountain lion's territory. They're also hunting the same prey that the mountain lion, as well as other predators, depend on for food. Now they're being killed for it in a conflict motivated largely by economic factors which Colorado exemplifies well.

Instead of humans and cattle, predators such as wolves, mountain lions and bears usually eat antelope, rabbits and deer. There doesn't seem to be a problem in that, those animals are reproducing enough to feed the others. Nature is not out of balance.

You'd think all would be well, considering that seems to be the point of government agencies, especially the states' respective game and fish commissions.

But according to the Gazette in Colorado Springs,  changes were proposed as part of a five-year, $820,000 study that would increase the kill limit on mountain lions in some places by 46 percent, raising the limit from 24 cats to 35. This is in four game management units north of the Arkansas River, between Salida and Cañon City in Colorado.

The purpose isn't to save the deer population, which is not endangered. Instead it's to increase the chances that human hunters have of bagging a deer. With more deer, the state believes that more hunters will buy game licenses and spend money.

This follows years of predators being protected, largely because they were threatened with extinction.

Now, there's been a small, but influential movement to hunt them again, after being nearly wiped out over the last three centuries.

Much of this pull has been in western states that have seen a decline in mule deer. While hunters love to blame predation, they don't seem to look at the other factors. In Colorado alone, the home of the largest mule deer herd, there are more than 2,000 wrecks that left mule deer dead each year. This is on top of some particularly harsh winters that sent temperatures dropping below zero for extended periods, chronic wasting disease and human development. These are factors that affect the predators too.

On top of that, hunters kill 35,000-40,000 deer in Colorado. Across the country, it's in the hundreds of thousands. For hunters, that's a lot of trophies and meat. For states and local economies, it's a lot of cash.

The problem is that when predators and prey are in balance, human hunters are largely unnecessary for population control. In order to increase deer and antelope populations, game and fish agencies allow for predators to be hunted too.

It sounds like a conflict of interest since these agencies jobs are to protect wildlife and nature, but you're talking about entities that are funded by selling fishing and hunting licenses and under the control of politicians. The numbers tell why. As of 2011, 15.7 million Americans hunt. Eighty percent that hunt go after big game like elk or deer, the same animals predators feed upon. In 2011, hunters spent $34 billion, a sizable chunk of change. Lots of entities want a share of that money.

Hunting publications get in on the game by printing articles about how predators are denying hunters big bucks (as in deer, not money). They often lament how these predators hunt fawns and adult deer, making it more difficult for them to get that trophy for their wall.

But in most places, at least in the U.S., the deer population is not being threatened. If anything, there's an overpopulation of deer in many states. This deer overpopulation results in hundreds, if not thousands of car accidents every year, some of them fatal. It also results in many diseases, lyme disease in particular, being spread. This is particularly true in states without a healthy predator population like those in the American South and Northeast.

This isn't to say it doesn't have its place. As said previously, there are many states without natural predators and exploding deer populations. Hunting animals like deer still plays a role in those states. There are also many local hunters in the U.S. who rely on animals like deer and other wildlife as their primary source of meat during the year.

Hunting has been in decline over the last several years. In my own state of Arkansas, biking has surpassed hunting and fishing as the outdoor sports of choice. I expect it will soon fall behind frisbee golf and zip lining.

When that time comes, what will the role of wildlife management and hunting be in our states? Do we want to let nature run its course when it can or do we want to mess with it for the sake of hunting dollars? 

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