September 24, 2024 • 8 mins
WHY YOU NEED TO VOTE NO ON THE MOUNTAIN LION HUNTING BAN I know, I know, they are very pretty. And can be very dangerous when meeting up with humans and civilization. Our mountain lion population has been well managed for a long time by biologists at the Colorado Parks and Wildlife division for years. We have a very healthy population that has grown and is maintained with things like controlled hunting to keep the numbers at a level where the cats have enough space to call their own. Today I've got Mike Costello with HOWL on to talk about California's hunting ban and what it's done there. It's not good. Find out more about HOWL by clicking here, and read his column about it here.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My next guest is on to talk about an issue
that is on the ballot. It is an issue that
I am not waffling a lot. I was talking about
waffling on rank choice voting earlier, but when it comes
to interrupting the process that already exists in Colorado to
manage the wildlife population, including mountain lions, I am not
interested in making any changes to rock that vote. And
(00:21):
joining me now is Mike Costello. He's with an organization
called how and he just wrote really good call himn
that was in Westward about why this man is both
unnecessary and unscientific and uncalled for. Mike, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
I appreciate the opportuity to expand on the Westward op
ed and get a little more granular on this subject.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
So you are actually in California where they have already
done this, correct.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Yeah, A hunting of mountain lions has had a few
inflection points, all of them going to more and more
control against the management of the critters in California since
the seventies, and the most aggressive of those, I would
say it was ballot box initiative, you know, a public
vote to eliminate honey of mountain lions in the state.
(01:14):
And then also about four or five years ago, a
policy decision made at the Wildlife department level, influenced by
some of the anti hunting industry folks, to eliminate or
significantly reduce lethal removal of problem lions. So they came
up with a three strikes in your outrole on lethal removal.
(01:35):
And so like we've just we've got forty fifty years
of mountain lions, generation of generation, and I love mountain lions.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
The thing is is, hunters love.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Wildlife, but now we have wildlife that don't act like wildlife.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
They're not scared of humans.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
They push into not just rural boundaries, but they're pushing
into suburban areas, and they are not healthy. Like if
they're coming after humans, if they're coming after horses and
keys and goats and dogs and cats in your backyard,
there's an imbalance. And that imbalance really it's it's about,
you know, hunting can Hunting can support wildlife and ecosystems
(02:14):
and support that balance, and we're just we're way out
of whack here in California right now because of this.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
So we you know, I grew up.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
My dad was on ter for his entire life. I
hunted when I was a kid. I don't hunt anymore,
but we were always taught about, you know, the perspective
of wildlife management. It was never about We're just going
to go out and shoot something. First of all, my
dad made us eat everything we killed. So I've pretty
much eaten everything that you can shoot. Not mountain lion,
because I've never shot one. But we always talked about
(02:43):
keeping the balance so animals didn't starve to death, whether
it's the deer population or it's the mountain lion population.
To your point, mountain lions don't normally come into neighborhoods,
but if they can't find anything else to eat, or
their territory has been encroached on by another mountain lion
has pushed them into an urban suburban you know interface,
then it becomes a huge problem. And it's not just
(03:04):
a huge problem for the mountain lion. It becomes a
huge problem for people. And is that what you guys
are seeing in California? Do you have more human lion interactions?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Now? We do there.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
It's almost every day there's some rural or suburban community
that has like, oh, a mountain lion was in so
and so's backyard day, or mountain lion was walking through
downtown today. Elado County is kind of the epicenter of
it right now. That county, since this lethal removal management
tool has been removed from the department, has seen just
an exponential growth, probably four fold growth this year in
(03:39):
conflict and we call it depredation conflict than say just
a few years ago.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
So the growth of these issues.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Is escalating, the lack of fear from lions to humans
is escalating, I think. But the I think it's really
important though mountain lions aren't like, I don't like this
by this kind of device thing about this caricature of
a trophy hunter, and then the hunters saying, oh, the
mountain lions are bad.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Mountain lions are doing what mountain lions do.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Mountains are fantastic, and most hunters that I talk to
love mountain lions. There are phenomenal creatures. They are amazing critters,
and they do what they do really well right, they
hunt and kill large prey. But also the trophy hunter
is this caricature, this make believe villain of a trophy
hunter is fictional and to push this type of ballad
(04:29):
and issue to forward.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
You have to create a divided audience.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
You have to create an evil trophy hunter caricature, and
then you have to say, oh, the mountain lions are
good or bad or whatever. They're not good or bad.
They're doing mountain lion things. And to me, this isn't
just about preventing conflict, it's about overall management both in
the wild places like in the wilderness, do you love
the mule deer? Do you love the yelk? Do you
love seeing lots of big horn sheep?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
You know? Do you want to see all of the
animals in balance?
Speaker 3 (04:56):
And CPW is done a phenomenal job of this in
the last fifty six years, one of the best in
the world, like two hundred and forty biologists, Like they've
got to do their work.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Colorado Parks and Wildlife as who he was talking about
in the program that we have now And this is
how I started this interview by saying, I have no
interest in changing what we're doing now. Every year they
get accounts, they do the best they can to get
account They get a number of mountain lions, and then
they give out a number of tags based on the
mountalin count for this year. They're very invested in keeping
the mountain lion population healthy at a good solid number,
(05:28):
making sure that all the cats have room to rome,
you know. And so they've been doing this successfully to
your point for decades now. And this is just like
the stupid wolf three introduction that we're dealing with now,
where a bunch of people in the front range were like,
no wolves, there are are them, but they don't want
them in Civic Center Park, right, They want them far
away from where everybody else is. I'm afraid that there
(05:50):
are enough people who are going to say, oh, this
cats are so beautiful, we shouldn't haunt them.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
What is the outcome? Then?
Speaker 1 (05:56):
You just mentioned mule, deer and elk, So have you
seen those populations of your prey animals, I guess have
they been greatly reduced as the mountain lion population has
come up.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
California is widely regarded in the in the big game
hunting community than the deer hunting community in the Western
States as being the one of the greatest places that
go for public land and scenic beauty and one of
the worst places to go for wildlife because we have
such poor predator management, our systems we have we have
(06:29):
more bear than any other state in the US.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Southern Alaska. We have this.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Wildly successful mountain lion population. Our deer has suffered tremendously
over the last forty years while other while predators.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Have really increased. And where did where did?
Speaker 3 (06:45):
We are at an inflection point where I believe there
is a there's an ecosystem i'll say crisis coming up
in the next few years. Bears are, Bears are are
We have twice more bears that we thought we had.
Mountain lions are are losing out to the bears because
bear steel two thirds of three fourths of their kills
and mountains are coming into our neighborhoods. And it's the
(07:07):
fault of the lack of management.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I think.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
You know, when you have a non hunter that's going
to go make up vote, They're going to make a
vote based on a headline and a picture, right Like,
what's important to them is successful wildlife, successful thriving ecosystems.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
And to do that you.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Need to take in thousands of data points and make
complex decisions every single year, which.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Is what CPW does.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
And when you take this tool out of their toolkits,
like telling somebody to go build a house, but you
can't have your hammer, Like you take this tool out
of the toolkit. CPW is not going to be able
to do their job. And it's called adaptive management. Right now,
they can adapt. If the mountain lion population starts to
go down, there's a problem there. They can pull those
tag numbers back, those quotas back. Adaptive management's gone. If
(07:55):
mule deer are suffering or big horn sheep are suffering
in Colorado, three, five, ten years from now, CPW has
no tool.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
I have no ability legally to do anything about it.
Mike cust if this goes through.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
So if you love critters, you just got to you
gotta let them do their work. Advocate at the commission level,
but let them have their tools, let them do their work.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Mike Costello is my guest. You should go and read
his column on Westward. I put a link to it
on the blog today at mandysblog dot com. Mike, I
really appreciate you taking the time to let the people
of Colorado know that this is a bad idea, and
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Man Hey, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
All right, that is Mike Costello
My next guest is on to talk about an issue
that is on the ballot. It is an issue that
I am not waffling a lot. I was talking about
waffling on rank choice voting earlier, but when it comes
to interrupting the process that already exists in Colorado to
manage the wildlife population, including mountain lions, I am not
interested in making any changes to rock that vote. And
(00:21):
joining me now is Mike Costello. He's with an organization
called how and he just wrote really good call himn
that was in Westward about why this man is both
unnecessary and unscientific and uncalled for. Mike, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
I appreciate the opportuity to expand on the Westward op
ed and get a little more granular on this subject.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
So you are actually in California where they have already
done this, correct.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Yeah, A hunting of mountain lions has had a few
inflection points, all of them going to more and more
control against the management of the critters in California since
the seventies, and the most aggressive of those, I would
say it was ballot box initiative, you know, a public
vote to eliminate honey of mountain lions in the state.
(01:14):
And then also about four or five years ago, a
policy decision made at the Wildlife department level, influenced by
some of the anti hunting industry folks, to eliminate or
significantly reduce lethal removal of problem lions. So they came
up with a three strikes in your outrole on lethal removal.
(01:35):
And so like we've just we've got forty fifty years
of mountain lions, generation of generation, and I love mountain lions.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
The thing is is, hunters love.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Wildlife, but now we have wildlife that don't act like wildlife.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
They're not scared of humans.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
They push into not just rural boundaries, but they're pushing
into suburban areas, and they are not healthy. Like if
they're coming after humans, if they're coming after horses and
keys and goats and dogs and cats in your backyard,
there's an imbalance. And that imbalance really it's it's about,
you know, hunting can Hunting can support wildlife and ecosystems
(02:14):
and support that balance, and we're just we're way out
of whack here in California right now because of this.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
So we you know, I grew up.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
My dad was on ter for his entire life. I
hunted when I was a kid. I don't hunt anymore,
but we were always taught about, you know, the perspective
of wildlife management. It was never about We're just going
to go out and shoot something. First of all, my
dad made us eat everything we killed. So I've pretty
much eaten everything that you can shoot. Not mountain lion,
because I've never shot one. But we always talked about
(02:43):
keeping the balance so animals didn't starve to death, whether
it's the deer population or it's the mountain lion population.
To your point, mountain lions don't normally come into neighborhoods,
but if they can't find anything else to eat, or
their territory has been encroached on by another mountain lion
has pushed them into an urban suburban you know interface,
then it becomes a huge problem. And it's not just
(03:04):
a huge problem for the mountain lion. It becomes a
huge problem for people. And is that what you guys
are seeing in California? Do you have more human lion interactions?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Now? We do there.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
It's almost every day there's some rural or suburban community
that has like, oh, a mountain lion was in so
and so's backyard day, or mountain lion was walking through
downtown today. Elado County is kind of the epicenter of
it right now. That county, since this lethal removal management
tool has been removed from the department, has seen just
an exponential growth, probably four fold growth this year in
(03:39):
conflict and we call it depredation conflict than say just
a few years ago.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
So the growth of these issues.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Is escalating, the lack of fear from lions to humans
is escalating, I think. But the I think it's really
important though mountain lions aren't like, I don't like this
by this kind of device thing about this caricature of
a trophy hunter, and then the hunters saying, oh, the
mountain lions are bad.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Mountain lions are doing what mountain lions do.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Mountains are fantastic, and most hunters that I talk to
love mountain lions. There are phenomenal creatures. They are amazing critters,
and they do what they do really well right, they
hunt and kill large prey. But also the trophy hunter
is this caricature, this make believe villain of a trophy
hunter is fictional and to push this type of ballad
(04:29):
and issue to forward.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
You have to create a divided audience.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
You have to create an evil trophy hunter caricature, and
then you have to say, oh, the mountain lions are
good or bad or whatever. They're not good or bad.
They're doing mountain lion things. And to me, this isn't
just about preventing conflict, it's about overall management both in
the wild places like in the wilderness, do you love
the mule deer? Do you love the yelk? Do you
love seeing lots of big horn sheep?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
You know? Do you want to see all of the
animals in balance?
Speaker 3 (04:56):
And CPW is done a phenomenal job of this in
the last fifty six years, one of the best in
the world, like two hundred and forty biologists, Like they've
got to do their work.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Colorado Parks and Wildlife as who he was talking about
in the program that we have now And this is
how I started this interview by saying, I have no
interest in changing what we're doing now. Every year they
get accounts, they do the best they can to get
account They get a number of mountain lions, and then
they give out a number of tags based on the
mountalin count for this year. They're very invested in keeping
the mountain lion population healthy at a good solid number,
(05:28):
making sure that all the cats have room to rome,
you know. And so they've been doing this successfully to
your point for decades now. And this is just like
the stupid wolf three introduction that we're dealing with now,
where a bunch of people in the front range were like,
no wolves, there are are them, but they don't want
them in Civic Center Park, right, They want them far
away from where everybody else is. I'm afraid that there
(05:50):
are enough people who are going to say, oh, this
cats are so beautiful, we shouldn't haunt them.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
What is the outcome? Then?
Speaker 1 (05:56):
You just mentioned mule, deer and elk, So have you
seen those populations of your prey animals, I guess have
they been greatly reduced as the mountain lion population has
come up.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
California is widely regarded in the in the big game
hunting community than the deer hunting community in the Western
States as being the one of the greatest places that
go for public land and scenic beauty and one of
the worst places to go for wildlife because we have
such poor predator management, our systems we have we have
(06:29):
more bear than any other state in the US.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Southern Alaska. We have this.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Wildly successful mountain lion population. Our deer has suffered tremendously
over the last forty years while other while predators.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Have really increased. And where did where did?
Speaker 3 (06:45):
We are at an inflection point where I believe there
is a there's an ecosystem i'll say crisis coming up
in the next few years. Bears are, Bears are are
We have twice more bears that we thought we had.
Mountain lions are are losing out to the bears because
bear steel two thirds of three fourths of their kills
and mountains are coming into our neighborhoods. And it's the
(07:07):
fault of the lack of management.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I think.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
You know, when you have a non hunter that's going
to go make up vote, They're going to make a
vote based on a headline and a picture, right Like,
what's important to them is successful wildlife, successful thriving ecosystems.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
And to do that you.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Need to take in thousands of data points and make
complex decisions every single year, which.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Is what CPW does.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
And when you take this tool out of their toolkits,
like telling somebody to go build a house, but you
can't have your hammer, Like you take this tool out
of the toolkit. CPW is not going to be able
to do their job. And it's called adaptive management. Right now,
they can adapt. If the mountain lion population starts to
go down, there's a problem there. They can pull those
tag numbers back, those quotas back. Adaptive management's gone. If
(07:55):
mule deer are suffering or big horn sheep are suffering
in Colorado, three, five, ten years from now, CPW has
no tool.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
I have no ability legally to do anything about it.
Mike cust if this goes through.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
So if you love critters, you just got to you
gotta let them do their work. Advocate at the commission level,
but let them have their tools, let them do their work.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Mike Costello is my guest. You should go and read
his column on Westward. I put a link to it
on the blog today at mandysblog dot com. Mike, I
really appreciate you taking the time to let the people
of Colorado know that this is a bad idea, and
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Man Hey, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
All right, that is Mike Costello
The Mandy Connell Podcast News
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