Killing of Lions At Kofa Suspended
We have had lots of posts about the sheep and lions at Kofa before. Ron Kearns, quoted in the article below, has been a regular responder here at this blog.
From the Yuma Sun:
Officials halt mountain lion killings at Kofa Refuge
April 21, 2008 – 10:18PM
BY JAMES GILBERT, SUN STAFF WRITER
State and federal wildlife officials announced they have suspended the killing of mountain lions at the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge for up to a year.
“I’m glad they made the decision they did, but it’s after the fact,” said Ron Kearns, a retired Kofa wildlife refuge biologist and game warden. “They have already killed the most important male to the lion population and were getting close to the most important female. They know they did some serious damage to the lion population.”
The announced moratorium on “lethal removals” of mountain lions, also referred to as cougars, captured and GPS-collared on the refuge comes days after Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) threatened to take both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Arizona Game and Fish Department to court unless the practice was ended.
“They (state and federal officials) were told what they were doing was unethical and illegal and if it didn’t stop, the conservation community would take legal action,” Kearns said. “It wasn’t a magnanimous decision on their part.”
The Kofa National Wildlife Refuge had been allowing Arizona Game and Fish to trap and collar mountain lions on the refuge, then use the collars to track and “lethally remove” the ones that have preyed on more than two bighorn in a six-month period under its May 2007 Kofa Mountains Complex Predation Management Plan.
However, that predation plan, which is a state plan, did not apply to the killing of mountain lions on the refuge, said Kofa Refuge Complex Manager Mitch Ellis.
Read the full story online here.
