JohnLaundre reports on the true positive of having predators in the system
In a blatant attempt to use fear, South Dakota “sportsmen” are trying to influence cougar management by raising the specter of a bloodthirsty predator killing all THEIR deer and elk. In South Dakota is where cougars are making a valiant attempt to re-establish themselves in historical range, an effort we has humans would admire and hold in awe as an ecological wonder for any other non-predator native species. This selective and outright prejudice against predators has got to stop. Not just because it is ecologically disastrous but also because it is flat out logically wrong! All across the West, so called sportsmen have been blaming predators, mainly cougars, for declines in deer populations that began in the early 1990’s and have yet to recover to previous, probably unhealthy, highs in the 1980’s. In the scientific literature, I demonstrated that if you go through the calculations and add the numbers up, it just does not make sense. Logically, given what cougars eat, the numbers of cougars, and the number of deer, cougars just can’t eat enough deer to make a difference. To do so, there would have to be higher numbers of cougars than has ever been reported and they would weight over 700 pounds after one year!
READ MORE at http://coyotes-wolves-cougars.blogspot.com/2010/07/johnlaundre-reports-on-true-postive-of.html