A Black Cat and Big Cats

Last week I told you Neo was going to the vet to be neutered. I guess he heard me talkin’, because when I went out Tuesday morning - no cat. We’re going to try again this week. Fingers crossed! I have this feeling he’s telling us something, though, so if it’s once again “no cat” I’m going to let it go for a while, although I’ll still feed him in the long cave (humane trap). 

Big cats - next week is the national election, and Proposition 127 here in Colorado is up for a vote. It will probably be a close-run thing. There’s an organization that opposes it very strongly, even though it’s a small number of hunters who actually trophy hunt the cats, and heaven forbid we do something ethical like not strangle a bobcat or shoot it in the eye for it’s fur. The fur goes overseas, and someone’s pockets are lined because an innocent animal’s fur looks better on a human - NOT.

I have a lot of passion about the big cats. Mountain Lion (Cougar) is my primary power animal. I’ve always loved them. I don’t usually go on at length about issues, but this one is under my skin and making it ripple.

This is my very first tattoo - a cougar paw.

I was driving home from Parker today and heard an ad on a radio station I listen to a lot, that essentially said this: Vote no on Proposition 127, and here’s why: Since 2004, the deer population in Colorado has declined from 600,000 to 433,000 in 2018. Okay, this is probably true. Mountain Lion numbers are at an all time high (it’s around 4000 animals - and Colorado is a big state). Also true. 

Using that new math we learned about a million years ago in grade school - (you know, the one where the two circles intersect, and what’s in the middle is where they overlap) - because we have fewer deer and more lions, it’s because the lions are eating all the deer. So we’ve GOT to protect our wildlife (which apparently doesn’t include Mountain Lions), and vote no on the proposition.

WHHHHHHAAAAAATTTT? That’s not exactly what I said out loud. It was more like WTF. Multiple times.

I did some research. Here’s what I found out.

The NUMBER ONE reason our deer population is declining is loss of habitat. No food, no deer.

Number Two: Competition for feed with Elk

Number Three: Disease. Let’s talk about Chronic Wasting disease, which is highly transmissible among the deer population (elk get it too). Humans (who kill around 80,000 deer in Colorado during a season) CANNOT eat an animal with Chronic Wasting disease because it will kill us. Predators with four legs, however, like coyotes, mountain lions and wolves, don’t have that problem. If I was a predator and had to choose between a fleet fawn with a protective mom or an adult deer with chronic wasting disease that’s kind of staggering away, which do you think I’d choose? 

Predation came in at Number 4, and here’s what it said, in brief: Yep, they kill deer. Yep, they eat them. But we don’t know how many because there’s not yet been a way to examine responses of mule deer populations to predator control. 

This is all from a study and report you can find here: https://sites.warnercnr.colostate.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/73/2017/06/mdreport.pdf

In California it’s been illegal to trophy hunt big cats for 50 years. They still have plenty of deer. 

People may try to tell you that trophy hunting is illegal in Colorado. That if you kill a cat you need to dress it and eat it. That’s what the rules say. (The rules also say don’t kill lady cats, but over 40% of the kills in 2023 were female.) While I’ve seen posts from one or two people who have done that dress and eat thing, for most it appears the cat is harvested for its head on a wall or its body as a rug. That’s trophy hunting.

We won’t go into the inhumane methods used to catch these animals, who are living in the back country minding their own business, trying to survive in a harsh environment that may or may not yield a good meal. (Dogs (which are often injured and left behind), GPS systems, high powered rifles, trees.)

A dead bobcat, probably beaten to death or shot in the eye after being caught in a live trap. 😿

Next week we vote. Vote YES on Proposition 127. Wildlife does deserve better. ALL wildlife. We need to get out of nature’s way and let it do what it does best - adapt and change as needed.

Getting off my soapbox now. And next week we’ll go back to our regularly scheduled programming.