Poll

[larry]

How many of you out there condone the shooting of female lions or 90-120lb toms. I realize that some areas and popoulations differ, but as a general rule without exceptions.

[onalimb]

Our Game Dept. is finally trying to discover why there's such a decline in the number of Lions. They allowed open hunting of females to the extent of 534 reported taken in 6 years, but that can't have anything to do with it.............could it? Friggin Biologists can't figure it out, so Mrs. Watsons third grade math class has been put in charge.

[Mike Leonard]

I am sure some areas are very different but as a general rule if you are a hound enthusiast this is a bad practice.

Killing mature female by mature I mean one that has successfully moved away from it's mother at a year or year and a half at most cases and has moved into the reproductive system. Killing one of these is the most devastating thing you can do to your lion population, and here is why. Most mature female lions keep one to three sub-adult lions within their care or partial care until the are from 14 to 18 months old. Yes therse lions are starting to kill for themselves once they are over A year but their success ration on large animals is still rather low and with the abandonment of the mother many times they die or end up in trouble killing livestock, pets and getting shot or trapped and eliminated that way.So killing that female may have in essence allowed as many as four lions to to be eliminated. Now then if she had been bred back already by the time she was killed she could be carrying another three kittens or so. Well many times not all of these make it anyway but usually two survive, so add those two to the number and you can quickly see that in just one real breeding cycle you have eliminated as man as six lions by pulling that trigger on her one time.No telling how many she might produce over several more years. Ok enough for that.

Small immature toms; In some area these cats weight from 75-120 pounds, and in other areas cats of the same age could range from 100 to 130 pounds and stil be less than three years old. Although killing these will have much less affect than killing the females it does impact trophy potential and genetic transfer of master genes.Sort of like having a great big old mule deer buck on your ranch. Say you have watched him for a number of years seen him in the rut breeding does and such but he is up there 6-7 years old and his trophy potential is about peaked out. Ok season comes and you limber up the old 06 and hang him in the barn, and cape him out for the taxidermist to mount so you can rmember him. This is all well and good and the way it should be and congratulations are in order.Ok Big Bambi is gone and you hunt the next season and you see a buck that has potential and even looks a lot like a smaller verson of Big Bambi hanging over your easy chair back at the ranch. Should you pop him because he is the biggest thing you have seen this year? Well you could and be perfectly within the law, but then you think back about the time it took for Big Bambi to grow up to meet real trophy standards, and you know this buck has the genetics to get to that standard so you hold off.

I know this sounds very simple when you think of it in deer standards becasue you see them all the time and lions are cryptic and seldom seen, but you know they are out there.

By holding off and killing only very mature trophy quality toms you can actually enhance the lion population by taking out the master dominant from time to time, and eliminating his carnivorious effects on his own kind, for we all know that dominant tom lions kill smaller lions and even their own young at times.

It sure is a lot more fun to go out and get some dog work done even if it is on smaller lions, than it is to hunt all season hoping one old tom might staggle thru on the right day to fill you tag.

If you have females in an area you will always be much more likely to be visiterd by a big boy.


Please note: depredation lions do not figure into my thinking but in areas where there is a lot of this work going on it casn throw the whole ball of wax out of sink. I know one rancher who raised sheep that complained so much that they had a govt. trapper almost living at his place and even though most of us knew it was coyotes and dogs killing the bulk oof the sheep over three years that snared 21 lions of all sizes and ages around his place.

[chilcotin hillbilly]

My area is quite different then most as there are only two cougar hunters in my area which takes in thousands of square miles. I still don't practise the harvesting of females as you know that ol'thomas will be paying a visit a number of times a year. With so few toms harvested ,there is always a many large mature toms visiting the area. Find the females and the toms will come.

[Kevin Jackson]

Bottom line is that nobody is breaking the law if it is within the legal quota. People might not agree with it but it's not illeagal. I don't kill females in my area whether Cody from Butte (Larry) thinks I do or not. In fact I've only had one female killed over my dogs in the last eight years and it wasn't Larry's Myspace cat. That was a 130 pound tom that was crossing through a ranch yard. The owner has seven kids, can't blame him for wanting it gone. I just about got kicked off the place because I let a female go there this year. If however I do decide to kill a female that is my right within the laws of this state. Don't blame other houndsmen, blame the fish and game. I made phone calls to biologists to lower the female quota in my area and it got one female off the quota. Before you accuse me of anything you had better be sure of your facts. If you want to call me names you had better be ready to back it up. I'm no tough guy but I'll damn sure make you earn the title. I'll be making a trip to Butte soon and I'll be traveling through Idaho in March. Either one of you plott guys that talk about needing such big balls to run a pack of plotts want to back your mouths up? I get on this site hoping to read a good story or see some good pictures and the majority of the posts are good and then there's you dip$hit$ posting your holier than though crap. If someone is enjoying a legal sport let them enjoy it whether you like it or not. Keep bitching and I'll round up all of my buddies and we'll be coming to a quota near you. Let me know if either one of you want to show what you're made of.

[wrbutler]

hey cody i mean larry i know you might be working in helena. call me i'll meet you in helena so we can have lunch. i know what you are trying to pull with this poll and it isnt a yes or no answer. you are still cowarding behind that keyboard, you are nothing but a joke to houndsmen.

[Idaho]

As a general rule I wont kill females over my dogs - but I have in the past and probably will kill another sometime before I give up this hunting thing. Depends on the situation and the area. If I decide to knock one out, then it will be.

Here where I hunt there are no quotas and with most of our houndsmen it's a free-for-all race to kill them before someone else finds them and kills them. Earlier this year I let a 130 pound tom and also a mature female go - one week later both were killed by other hunters. All it takes around here is a tag, and they will sell 50,000 of those if that many people wants to try and kill a cougar.

In an area with a quota, say eight or ten cougar or something like that, I would imagine that the impact of killing a few females would be less. If the state you hunt in is alright with a certain number of females being killed then what can you do, it's legal. Petition them to change it if your not happy with it. Here in Idaho they won't listen to us houndsmen and let me tell you, if they could only kill ten females in this area it would sure help us out. Heck, I'd be for ten total - or even less.

To give you my oppinion, I think most of the time you should leave the females go. But I've had a few females killed over my dogs, and probably will have another sometime before it's over.

[reed]

There may be laws saying you can but your morals should tell you not to. A female is not a once in a life time cat unless you have no morals or your guide miss informs you on what a once in a life time cat is.

So you guys are right, there may not be any laws saying you can't shoot the female but don't cry when someone calls you on a lack of morals.

[fallriverwalker1]

come on kids this is why its so easy for the antis to take things away from us , we spend to much time worrying about what the next person is doinq , to many jelous people

[onalimb]

Awe forget it,

[MTblack&tan]

I don't think this poll has anything to do with the legalities of killing females, just the morals of killing females. Too many people will kill females because the quotas will allow them to. If more people voluntarily chose not to kill females, then we wouldn't necessarily need the quota to dictate how many females get killed. For now we have to rely on the quota, be it not enough or too many, to keep us from overkilling females.

[Smiley]

I am sick and tired of this bs about the antis's are loving this fighting amongst ourselves excuse. It is just that an excuse of not to get to the bottem of a ghuge problem. One the way F&G controls predator populations makes it essential for us to patrol our ranks if we just " do what is legal " then we will one have nothing to chase and two the anti's will come in and take over because no sound management is taken control of the populations and it will be taken from our hands and we will be watching paid hunters hunt our game .
I also believe when a fight in our area ( unfortunately it has to be close to home before people will take notice ) people will band together no matter feelings toward how one hunts or not. Think about it if you knew a hound was shot of someone you could not stand I highly doubt you would not stand up in court for that dog / owner ect... because you know it could be you sitting there.

Quit your bitching about this bickering because if there was no bickering nothing would be done even though the bickering may not get a LOT done I know that it does cause people to think and some even to sway to more ethics and better judgements .

Oh it is not jealously it comes from the passion of wanting to keep a sport not only for me but others to come.
Some just feel it is not important enough to fight for or protect , there are many on here that feel it is important.

[Kevin Jackson]

MTblack&tan, speaking of morals do you feel that it is moraly correct to go to a spot that someone coon hunts in and kill all the coons?

[Ike]

Morality has little if anything to do with killing a female lion. In all species, like elk or deer, the fish and game departments across the west manage population numbers by taking female animals. That's how managers limit over population, by reducing the producing or female animals. Therefore, if it's immoral to kill a female lion then the fish and game and big game hunters across the country are guilty of that as well........

Conservation is really the issue, and therefore if there are lots of lions in an area there isn't anything wrong with taking some of those animals. However, if lion tracks are limited in a guys area then I don't understand why they would take a female lion unless there is just cause, such as public safety or depredation. As the lion population has become more limited in my area, I have moved further and further away from taking them unless the state requires it for the public safety or depredation thing. And I don't have a problem with that because it's their animal not mine--and they are then responsible for the harvest and not me..........and I realize if I don't do it some government trapper will and killing a lion out of a snare seems less dignified than from a tree.

I personally believe this is a good post which gives all of us a chance to think about what we kill and why we kill it. We all know dead lions don't leave tracks, and therefore if lion tracks are limited in your area a guy should think long and hard before harvesting that animal, whether it's a female or a young tom lion.........

And I didn't vote because of my ideas that it is neither right or wrong and depends on management goals and public safety or depredation.....bottom line is kill fewer females if you want more lios to run.

ike

[dryground]

Here in Nevada most houndsmen don't kill female but Fish&game want use to .
Fish & Game are trying to put a $500 bounty on lions or declassified to a predator you will not need a tag just shoot on sight like a coyote. Now they wont to give us 3 tags
per person. So if we don't kill more lions we will lose it all together. I don't want to lose lion hunting so what is a guy to do.