anti lion hunting article,

[Emily]

the view from the other side
Earth Island Journal, spring 2014
http://www.earthisland.org/journal/inde ... /catfight/
Long, some good pix,
Warning: views all hunters as inexplicably monolithically pathologically and ignorantly anti-cougar, and lumps us in with pet owners and other irrational anti-predator folk

some of the background info is interesting and reasonably accurate, e.g.
"The cougar’s adaptability is an expression of its evolutionary history. The mountain lion is one of the most recently evolved felids, a New World species that at its beginnings shared the landscape with dire wolves, carnivorous short-faced bears, and the terrifying smilodon, a massive saber-toothed cat capable of taking down bison. Trying to be the king of the hill was never an option for the cougar, and prudence seems embedded in the animal’s DNA. In much of the United States today, the mountain lion is an apex predator. But in areas where it encounters competitors – places such as Wyoming and Montana, where grizzlies and wolf packs lay down the law, or Central America, where jaguars dominate – the cougar is content to play second fiddle. When confronted with trouble, a cougar typically runs away. The cougar’s instinctive wariness extends to people as well. The animal seems uniquely adept at avoiding us, and can survive even in areas where humans dwell, often passing unnoticed."