Wildlife managers in Utah have begun culling mountain lions in six of the state’s recreation administration items as a part of a new study. The target of the three-year examine is to gauge the impacts these focused removals could have on deer populations. They’re attempting to find out whether or not killing extra mountain lions ends in extra mule deer.
“We’ve seen predation as a possible limiting think about many items,” Kent Hersey, Utah Division of Wildlife Sources large recreation initiatives coordinator informed the state wildlife fee throughout a board meeting on Thursday. “When lion predation exceeds seven % or so, deer survival could be very troublesome. If we will’t obtain inhabitants survival, the inhabitants goes down. That creates additive mortality, and we wish to see what occurs once we take away additive mortality.”
This “additive mortality” is cougars, which depend on deer for round 80 percent of their weight loss plan. The DWR says the six looking items within the examine space have increased than eight % predation, with some items seeing double-digit percentages lately.
The follow of killing mountain lions (and different predators) to learn ungulate populations stays a controversial topic amongst wildlife managers. And though Utah is just not the primary state to undertake such an experiment, the response from hunters and trappers there was blended. Some teams are already talking out in opposition to the examine, whereas others are supporting it or taking a wait-and-see strategy.
“The Utah Houndsmen Association doesn’t help this examine,” UHA’s outgoing president Cory Huntsman mentioned in the course of the fee’s public testimony session in January.
Houndsmen, in fact, play an necessary function in protecting Utah’s cougar populations in examine and studying the species. As do trappers, who additionally harvest them. And whereas bounties on large cats had been eliminated again within the Nineteen Sixties, when the species achieved regulatory standing, Utah made it simpler for hunters and trappers to regulate cougar populations in 2023 by legalizing lion hunting year-round. The DWR’s new multi-year effort ups the ante by including state company trappers to every of the six recreation administration items below examine: Boulder, Monroe, Stansbury, Pine Valley, Wasatch East, and Zion.
It’s all this further strain that doesn’t sit proper with Huntsman and different houndsmen, who are actually asking the DWR to launch maps of the place the state’s traps and snares are positioned.
“We’ve had hounds killed by snares,” Hunstman mentioned. “Outfitters are scared in order that they’re not looking the lions. They’re counting on state trappers. With a warmth map, you would possibly get the outfitters in there as nicely. You’ll give us a bit of peace of thoughts to the place we will flip our canines free.”
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Different looking teams have come out in help of the examine, which began with the DWR collaring mule deer within the six items throughout late 2025. The Utah Wild Sheep Foundation is offering $150,000 in funding, whereas Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife is contributing one other $150,000. The Mule Deer Foundation helped with collaring in December and is now ready to see the outcomes of the examine earlier than taking a stance on it. MDF president Greg Sheehan says he was a part of that collaring effort, and that regardless of a light winter to date, he seen the physique fats on most of the does was extremely low.
“We acknowledge cougars can have a inhabitants impact in some cases, however in different cases they don’t,” Sheehan tells Outside Life. He appears to be like ahead to studying the outcomes of the examine and the way managers “will go about implementing modifications primarily based on these outcomes.”
Not surprisingly, a few of the identical wildlife teams who pushed again on the 2023 regulation to broaden mountain lion looking have spoken out strongly in opposition to the brand new examine. Predator advocacy teams just like the Mountain Lion Foundation argue that cougar populations are already in decline, and that different elements play a much bigger function than predators in suppressing Utah’s mule deer populations.
“Habitat high quality, winter severity and human strain finally decide deer restoration not predator eradication,” MLF social media coordinator Anna Wright informed the fee earlier this month. “What these removals reliably do trigger is instability.”
Riley Peck, the incoming director of the DWR, acknowledged in that very same assembly, nonetheless, that the state company is required to do one thing about the downturn in mule deer populations that researchers in Utah and different Western states have seen in latest many years.
“Now we have a mandate from the state legislature that tells us we’re going to have a look at cougar administration and take particular motion when predators may need a top-down impact on a few of our large recreation species,” Peck informed these in attendance. “That places us in an fascinating spot as we try to handle for abundance and existence of cats for many who need them and handle for a giant recreation species that’s primarily their prey.”
Hersey famous throughout his presentation that mule deer declines are a top-up drawback in roughly 70 % of the state — which means populations are struggling attributable to a lack of habitat, vegetation, and different environmental elements. He mentioned the DWR considers the opposite 30 % of the state to be a top-down drawback, which implies predation is the limiting issue.
These science-based concerns, nonetheless, don’t take public opinion into consideration. And at a time when some Western states have thought of outright bans on cougar hunting, lion hunters are discovering themselves in the course of a bigger debate.
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“The optics are horrible,” Huntsman warned in his testimony. “A examine like this, with the optics it brings on Utah, I simply don’t suppose we have to deliver this combat to Utah any quicker than it’s already coming.”
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