12
Jacob Morrow
Columnist
Islanders Outdoors
Nebraska Game and Parks Commission justifies mountain lion season
In this world in which we
live, when something is going wrong,
humans immediately look for something to blame. And from a hunter’s
perspective when the number of
game declines, we tend to point to
predators to be our scapegoat. When
our turkey numbers decrease, the
coyotes and bobcats are to blame. Or
when that cubby of quail begins to
diminish, a hawk is to blame. I believe that these predators are mother
nature’s vacuum cleaners, keeping
the populations of game in check.
This way the population doesn’t explode and then possibly have another
outbreak of the Bluetongue or EHD
(Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease).
However, I do believe the
disposal of more aggressive species
is acceptable. And that is a focus here
in Nebraska by the Game and Parks
Commission. January 1 represented
the first mountain lion season in
Nebraska. I am very curious about
how a mountain lion season will
go, curious to the number of lions
harvested, and also a little nervous
about how many accidents there
will be with inexperienced hunters
encountering mountain lions. It’s a
completely different thing to bring
down a bobcat or mountain lion or
even a coyote in order to protect livestock. But a hunting season strictly
for game is something very different
and the Game and Parks Commission
knows that this is something that has
never happened before in the state of
Nebraska.
Mountain lions are very
invasive species. They normally are
native to the Colorado and Wyoming
on west to California and up into
western Canada. But there has been
sightings of cougars as far west as
Illinois—to a point people have to
stop and think, “Are mountain lions
a problem, and is there a necessity
to remove them from their unnatural
habitat?”
Only time will tell if this
mountain lion season is a good
move. It gives hunters a new challenge to face in the Nebraska wilderness that has never been done before.
We’ll just see what the future has in
store for us.
The diagram above represents the common places for mountain lions to reside, and it is clear that mountain lions have
slowly worked their way east. Information from usatoday.com
Illustration by Jesus Maese
What to do if you encounter a mountain lion:
Shout and scream loudly.
Remain as tall as possible with your
arms above your head.
Each circle represents sightings or tracks signs of mountain lions in Nebraska
since 1991. Information from the Nebraska Game and Parks Commision.
Illustration by Jesus Maese
DO NOT RUN.