houndnem wrote:First off I want to say that I am not for the killing of females. I admitted in my first post that less than a small hand full of them have died over my dogs in the last 12 years for different reasons, or excuses whatever ya want to call it. I have never let a female hit the dirt or heard of others shooting females and felt quit right about it, but it happened and I can't change the past. I do want to offer some counter points to the anit female killer adgenda. they're not my feelings, rather just thoughts to think about. every year I hear this same debate about the harvest and the females killed etc. every year. which means there were obviously still a bunch of lions to kill right??? you can't overharvest an area that doesn't have lions????
I actually felt like I saw more tracks per days out this year than in the previous 3 years. the trophy size has dropped each year though which is unfortunate.
I myself would love to see the lion numbers back where they were in the nineties and early 2000's. it was great! great trophy size, didn't even need to dump on female tracks even when pursuing etc. that is when I developed my love for the lions and for the sport. that was when it was really fun to run hounds. on any given day you were in the hills you had a chance at a booner. but that is what got us here in the first place. the average hunter, rancher, or outdoor enthusiest looks at lions the same way we look at wolves. they are no good deer killing human killing animals that need to be exterminated. there are only two small groups of people that want lions to live, us and the tree huggers. problem is that the huggers don't want us to be able to chase or kill them. so where does that leave us? a small group of rowdy rednecks trying to take on the whole world. and worst of all none of us even get along.
if females were not killed each year and cougar sightings became common, what do you think our government would do? every time a rancher looses livestock or every time we turn on the evening news to hear that a lion was in somebodies yard it would just add to the hatred toward lions. eventually they will rage all out war with them. they had a bounty on them back in the day and if they started overpopulating you can bet your a$$ the gov't would do it again or better yet they could end hounding them and hire gov't hunters to come take care of it since the hound guys won't kill females.
I think most of us that have had dogs for a long time respect the females and don't really put a dent in the lions. for every thirty we catch maybe one or two will die. but a few bad apples are taking it too far killing every female and kitten that climbs. and the dwr is fueling the flame by making more tags available. if these guys don't have the common sense to keep from killing all the cats, what makes you think they give a dam if their name is on a list???
I don't have the answer to what we need to do, but as individuals we can only do our part. what the next guy does is on him. all we can hope for is that the dwr sees the declining age and number of females harvested and when their three years is up they adjust for it and let out fewer tags. as long as the limited entry hunters leave tags unfilled there will always be the harvest quota left open to overkill. I guess my general point is that the dwr and the rest of the world has a number of lions they can live with and it aint even close to how many we wish there were, so I'm gona continue to chase, catch and even sometimes kill the herd we have left. all things in moderation, and if all those knuckle heads would do that as well I don't think we would have need for this post.
Very well said. Letting all the females go, and only killing mature toms is only going to add fuel to the fire of the people who hate lions already. Lions do need to be killed, and a wide range of ages and of both sexes need to be accounted for to keep our sport of hounding alive and keep the Gov't hunters as well as the lion haters off our backs. We want all these lions to run, but no one thinks of who writes the checks to the game and fish, and who they will listen to more. Keep the lions at a number where we can still enjoy them with our dogs, and low enough to keep the fish and game from saying we aren't being productive enough, and other means must be impemented to take care of the problem, such as poisoning, snaring, trapping, airplane shooting, and other ways to kill lions that we as houndsmen would not enjoy.
