From: Cougar Rewilding Foundation;cougarrewilding@gmail.com
Sent: Tuesday, November 05, 2019
To: Meril, Rick
The Cougar Rewilding Foundation was featured in The Roanoke Times in a September 22 article, "WYOM(What's On Your Mind): Should cougars be reintroduced to the east?" CRF's Ben Shrader, mentioned in the piece, has been busy providing instruction to future hunter educators and working hard to ally with conservation groups in Virginia.
The article, however, highlights the common response biologists and advocates face when discussing pumas: "we see them, and so we know they are already here." Such sentiments remind us of what we need not be reminded: the critical need for continued predator education. This multifaceted education includes the holistic approach to understanding healthy ecosystems, biodiversity, and restoration of eastern forests.
A Florida Puma
While some folks still argue that there is not enough space in the East, to which the writer of the article alludes, we can only point to the lions outside of L.A. While the article illustrates the opinion of "letting nature take its course" as a retort to the suggestion of reintroduction, we maintain that the loss pf pumas in the East was absolutely not a result of natural circumstances, but a concentrated effort to destroy all carnivores.
2014 trailcam picture of a Puma wandering the Maine woods
Indeed, nature is taking its course in the 21st Century way-cougars are returning but just need a little help at reestablishing a sustainable population.
CRF is advocating for new research on Chronic Wasting Disease
CWD is among a small group of diseases caused by infectious proteins. These devastating diseases, which include Scrapie in sheep and Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle- also known as Mad Cow Disease, affect the brain of their victim and are ultimately fatal. They are incredibly difficult to study and as a result are not well understood. According to the Centers for Disease Control, CWD has been reported in at least twenty-four states. We are careful to analyze cougar restoration to mitigate any hazards associated with CWD while framing reintroduction as a public health benefit. Because it has spread so quickly in a brief period of time, it is hard to quantify and qualify long term effects of affected populations of moose, deer, and elk. Our intentions to reference cougar restoration as a public health issue is not a public health issue but a realistic and pragmatic approach for future planning of rewilding and environmental justice.
Western Cousins
Habitat fragmentation and genetic isolation future all wild felid populations. Florida Panthers occupy a precarious spot in a troubled but resilient history, balancing between hope and calamity. But western populations are threatened as well. The Mountain Lion Foundation (MLF) states that southern California pumas living in the Santa Ana and Santa Monica Mountains could become extinct between twelve and fifteen years, due to car collisions, poisoning, and inbreeding.
It would be naive to think that any population of wild animals, especially larger mammals, are safe from extinction, and especially so in a climate of antipathy from elected officials. It is ignorance at best, and hostility towards the environment at worst. MLF proposes to change the status of pumas from 'specially protected mammal' to one as 'threatened' or 'endangered' under the California Endangered Species law. A public hearing is scheduled for February 2020.
This situation becomes more urgent with the documentation of two more mountain lion deaths in the past two months. One death was confirmed to be a result of rodenticide, and the other lion had an undetermined amount of rodenticide in her body. California advocated pushed for protections from second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides (SGARs). While it will not pass this year, it will have a chance next year.
Other News Around the States
A male cougar was photographed in July in Michigan, where they are a protected species. Specialists with the DNR state an average of three confirmed puma reports in the last three years.
In August, reports from Florida addressed certain afflictions of panthers and bobcats alike. Researchers stated rat poison and toxic algae were two possible causes, although at the time of this newsletter, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has not been able to determine the exact cause for what has been described as a neurological disorder.
In October, the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Commission voted to extend their mountain lion hunting season from March 31 to April 30, and increased the permits from 57 to 75 in Custer State Park. New Hunting quotas would allow the killing of about thirty percent of the lion population, a percentage CRF and MLF believe are unnecessary and unsustainable. Given that South Dakota is critical for cougar expansion the continued assault on pumas in states like South Dakota must be resisted.
Hope
Hope looms in an active youth movement as we see younger generations mobilize for climate justice. This is a tremendous opportunity for us to welcome them into the rewilding movement, of which many younger folks may not be aware. But through our experiences in our various work, interactions with younger generations have been largely positive. Hope is an active process, and, as Chris Spatz advises, "the Cougar Rewilding Foundation recommends joining your state's 2025 wildlife action plan committee...until we broaden the base of financial support for wildlife conservation, our efforts to restore the puma and wolf and other top carnivores will be uphill struggles."
Speaking of State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAPs), the Recovering America's Wildlife Act is the latest iteration of a federal proposal to dedicate $1.3 billion in annual funding for those 12,000 at-risk species covered in the SWAPs. A tax on hydrofracking revenues first proposed by a Blue Ribbon Panel of sportsmen, auto, and extractive industry executives for RAWA appeared in 2017, receiving bi-partisan endorsements by 117 members of Congress, though the bill never got out of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Federal Lands. The new version, whose funding source has been shifted to the General Treasury in the hope that switching from fracking revenues would entice more support from progressives, has attracted 122 House co-sponsors. In 2000, two versions of the bill, a 'backpack' tax and an offshore gas leasing tax, were shot down by outdoor gear industry and conservation lobbies. Since then, the 12,000 at-risk species receive about $63 million in annual appropriated funding.
For the (re)Wild,
G. White
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