Thursday, August 1, 2013
This cougar was trapped and relocated after killing an alpaca on Libby Creek several years ago. File photo by Sue Misao
Groundbreaking study changes how state’s cougar population is controlled
By ANN McCREARY
The social behavior of cougars, studied for more than a decade by a
team of state biologists, is the basis for a new approach to managing
the big cats in Washington.
The research has revealed that cougar populations are naturally
self-controlling because cougars are extremely territorial. Taking that
into consideration, state wildlife officials are implementing an
innovative hunting and management strategy that is generating widespread
interest from wildlife managers and biologists.
“The concept of thinking about cougars’ social system and how they
interact, in terms of management, is something that has never been done
before,” said Rich Beausoleil, cougar and bear specialist for Washington
Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Over a 13-year period, Beausoleil led three of six cougar research
projects in Washington, including Okanogan County, and is the lead
author on a scientific article to be published this fall or winter in
the Wildlife Society Bulletin. The research project also studied cougar
populations near Issaquah, Cle Elum, Kettle Falls, Republic and the Blue
Mountains.
The peer-reviewed article, called “Research to Regulation: Cougar
Social Behavior as a Guide for Management,” describes an approach to
managing cougars “founded on their behavior and social organization …
that should promote population stability.”
Although the article has not appeared in print yet, Beausoleil said
he’s receiving calls from wildlife biologists and policy makers who have
heard about his research and are interested in learning more.
“This is pretty groundbreaking stuff, and it’s going to generate
quite a bit of discussion in the scientific community,” Beausoleil said
in an interview Monday (July 29). “Folks from around the U.S. have
contacted me, a researcher from Sweden, and most recently a reporter
from National Geographic.”
Science-based strategy
The goal of the research – one of the longest-running studies of
cougars ever conducted – is to develop a management strategy that is
based on science, rather than politics, as it has often been in the
past, Beausoleil said.
A ban on using dogs for hunting cougars approved by Washington voters
in 1996 prompted the introduction of 16 legislative bills addressing
cougar management over the past 15 years.
The basic idea of the state’s new management approach, Beausoleil
said, is based on cougars’ social system and territorial nature. Adult
cougars, especially males, have a natural drive to establish, patrol and
defend a territory. If another cougar enters that territory, the cougar
will fight to the death to defend it.
“The No. 1 cause of death in the wild is cougars killing cougars,”
Beausoleil said. “The strongest ones and the ones with the best genes
survive.”
If an adult male cougar dies or is killed – by a hunter, for instance
– the territory is left undefended and younger male cougars will move
in. Often two or more younger cats enter the territory formerly occupied
by a single adult male.
Because cougars don’t develop their territorial instincts until they
are about 4 years old, the younger cougars may occupy overlapping ranges
for a few years, resulting in a higher local cougar population, and
increasing the potential for interactions with livestock and humans.
“One of the reasons cougars may come into conflict with humans is if
you take out a territorial male, you have just increased the odds [of
cougar encounters]. Instead of one you now have three cougars,”
Beausoleil explained.
“If you live in one of those areas where a male was removed, instead
of seeing one, now your potential is to see three or four because those
animals are too young to defend their home range. Now you’re thinking,
‘Holy smokes, the cougar population really exploded.’ It really hasn’t,
it’s a temporary chaotic condition.”
The Wildlife Society article notes that “increased hunting may not
always result in reduced local densities of cougars … instead, increased
hunting may result in compensatory immigration by mainly young males.”
“If this occurs on a large scale it will take two or three years
before the area stabilizes again,” and the younger cougars reach the age
where they begin killing each other, Beausoleil said. “We want to try
to manage cougars more responsibly and preserve the older age structure
that is so important.”
Rich
Beausoleil, cougar and bear specialist for the Washington Department of
Fish and Wildlife, discusses the findings of an extensive study of
cougar habits during a presentation last winter at the North Cascades
Basecamp. File photo by Don Nelson
Studying habits
The concept is not necessarily intuitive, Beausoleil said. He
sometimes receives calls from ranchers who report seeing a cougar on
their land and want Beausoleil to come kill it.
“I ask why. And sometimes they say because they’ve seen it every
year. I tell them, ‘He’s probably the best insurance you have against
potential conflict because he’s keeping all the other cats away. When
you have one cougar who knows how to live around people, why take that
one out and open it up to two or three males? Let them help you.’”
In stable cougar populations, Beausoleil and other researchers have
discovered very predictable densities of 1.7-2.0 adults per 100 square
kilometers. In addition, research in Washington found that the cougar
population would increase by about 14 percent per year without hunting.
To apply research findings to wildlife policy, Beausoleil and his
fellow researchers used satellite telemetry from 117 radio-collared
cougars in five study areas in Washington to identify habitats used by
the marked cougars. They extrapolated these habitats throughout the
state, and did on-the-ground assessments to verify likely habitats.
Past hunting management policies designated large game management
units where objectives were to decrease or increase the cougar
population. In areas easily accessible to hunters within those
management units, greater numbers of cougars were taken, while few were
taken in less accessible areas.
Using the habitat information, state wildlife officials last January
established smaller “cougar management zones” created to “distribute the
harvest more equitably across the landscape … [while] preserving the
social stability across the whole state.” Rather than 13 large game
management units, the state designated 49 smaller cougar management
zones.
The state also established a harvest “threshold” of 14 percent of the
estimated population in each cougar management zone, to preserve the
stability of the population.
State wildlife officials have also instituted a 24-hour reporting and
information hotline, allowing officials to quickly close management
zones that reach the harvest threshold.
In addition to distributing the cougar harvest more evenly, smaller
management zones provide a benefit to hunters, Beausoleil said. “When
one [zone] closes a hunter can go right next door. Hunters are happy
because it’s not a giant area that is closing,” he said.
The resulting harvest of 150 cougars last year, Beausoleil said, is
“similar to the five-year average,” but distributed more equally across
the management zones.
The data-driven approach to cougar management also appeals to the
non-hunting public and conservationists, Beausoleil said. “They want to
know management is responsible and scientifically credible,” he said.
“They want to make sure their dollars are being spent responsibly.”
“A simple, consistent, science-based approach to cougar management,”
the Wildlife Society Bulletin article said, “can be of benefit to
agencies during intervals of administrative and political uncertainty.”
Beausoleil said the cougar studies may also be relevant to another
controversial carnivore in Washington. “These research findings may also
be applicable for wolf management in the future, because they’re highly
territorial as well,” he said.
source
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