The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission will consider a new management plan for cougars at its meeting in Prineville on October 13. A draft plan presented to the commission in August includes some good things, such as continuing to allow cougar populations to grow above an old target level of 3,000, but the plan still overemphasizes killing cougars as a way to solve perceived conflicts with people, pets, livestock and other wildlife. These "management" killings could be accomplished by hunting cougars with packs of dogs, which voters outlawed in 1994 for "sport" hunting. (The dogs chase the cougar up a tree and the "hunter" shoots it at point-blank range.)
Please tell the Fish and Wildlife Commission that you don't want cougars killed over conflicts that can be solved without killing, and that you especially don't want cougars killed with cruel methods such as hunting with packs of dogs. Comments are most effective if you put them in your own words. Send your comments by email to odfw.commission@state.or.us; or by mail to Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission, 4034 Fairview Industrial Drive SE, Salem, OR 97302. To make sure the Commission see your comments, we suggest sending them in no later than October 6.
For more detailed information, you can find the entire Cougar Management Plan and other information by clicking here and scrolling down to "Exhibit E." To see the comments we submitted, click here, though yours can be much shorter - just emphasizing the four points we made at the beginning would be great.
Thank you for helping us protect cougars in Oregon!