Colorado to Cull Bear/Dear to Help Deer

[COlineman78]

Colorado embarks on experimental “predator control” killing of more lions and bears to try to save dwindling deer – The Denver Post

I'm sure this will turn into a PR nightmare, but it is the right thing to do. Hopefully we can get back to drawing deer tags every year.

 

[Muledeerfanatic]

Peoples heads in Boulder are spinning!

 

[Nomad]

What we really need is "hippie control"... but this is a good start.

 

[5MilesBack]

The yes votes clears CPW crews to move ahead in their experiment to use cage traps, culvert traps, foot snares and hunting dogs to immobilize mountain lions and bears. Then those caught would be shot. Project documents show up to 15 mountain lions and 25 black bears would be killed each year.

Why not just issue more tags in those two areas, let hunters take care of the problem, save the CDOW money, and completely eliminate any discussion on the topic from the ignorant public.

I can't believe they're spending $4.5 million dollars on this. And then they wonder why they have no money.

 

[Nomad]

Why not just issue more tags in those two areas, let hunters take care of the problem, save the CDOW money, and completely eliminate any discussion on the topic from the ignorant public.

I can't believe they're spending $4.5 million dollars on this. And then they wonder why they have no money.

Yeah, I thought the same thing. Someone's definitely getting a nice kickback.

 

[realunlucky]

4.3 million for 15 lions and 25 bears a year?

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[jpuckett]

3 words: spring bear season


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[elkstabber]

This looks like great news to me. If the "experiment" goes well and the deer population increases maybe we'll see more bear hunting opportunities, like a much-needed Spring Bear season.

 

[CoHiCntry]

3 words: spring bear season


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That's what I'm talking about!

 

[mtnrunner260]

Some accused CPW of favoring hunters’ interests in increased deer at the expense of other species. Hunting and fishing license revenues provide 90 percent of CPW’s funding.

Hunting tag/license fees along with PR and DJ money are about the only reason there is money for the management of non game species.
I know I preaching to the choir here but "damn hippies"

 

[jimd]

I don't live in Colorado but I'm going to chime in anyway. In talking to wildlife biologists and reading research papers from people around the different areas most of them say predators account for a very small number of the loss of mule deer.

 

[justin davis]

I could have told them that. Less lions equals more deer. We have way to many lions in Colorado. They hammer deer and sheep.

 

[Idaho CTD]

There was a Fish and Game study done in Salmon, ID in the late 70's. They removed all the bears they could to see the effects on the elk population. The elk population tripled within a few years and then as the bear population gradually came back the elk population declined until it was back down to where it was before the study. Lions and bears have a pretty big impact on the calves and fawns.

 

[Ftguides]

Much of this is driven by a handful of recent academic studies that prove bears have a massive impact on deer/elk.

From what I have read in the academic literature on bears, there are two big management issues. 1) when they decimate a food source they learn to sustain their population through another, completely different, food source. Now that we have urban areas well within almost all black bear range, that means bears can go up and wipe out calves/fawns and then come down to eat garbage and people's pets for the rest of the year. If the urban area wasn't there, the calf/fawn crop would only support so many bears. 2) Almost all predation has a % that is not additive, meaning the animals would die any ways. Coyotes have a large segment of this, wolfs a little, cats only a tiny bit, bears almost none. Bears prey on young during the period of time when the young hardly move. This means the bears predation is never focused on weak, sick, etc... they just uniformly eat young. You can think about it this way (absolutely not science based numbers, but gives you the idea), a coyote kill equals 30% of a game animal removed, a wolf 45%, a cat 75%, and a bear 98%

hope that is interesting. i'm a dork on these things.

 

[elkguide]

We have been seeing deer population here in the east stabilize and even fall a little as the bear population is building. We are also having an exponential number of regular bear sightings in residential neighborhoods. F&W is trying to balance the need for an expanded bear season with the emotional feelings of so much of the population.