Bill would end cougar protection

New Mexico’s 4,000 or so mountain lions are doing just fine and don’t need protection or management, a House committee was told Friday before voting to do away with state oversight. Under House Bill 586, cougars would effectively be treated like other unprotected species such as coyotes or skunks. The Department of Game and Fish would no longer regulate their hunting nor monitor and manage their population. The House Agriculture, Water and Wildlife Committee passed the bill 8-2 at the urging of ranchers and former Game and Fish Department Director Jim Lane. Lane said the change would eliminate the bureaucracy of obtaining permits to trap or kill cougars to solve livestock predation problems or to encourage mule deer populations. “Cougar populations are going quite well,” he said, and the change wouldn’t harm them, he said. “Lions scratch out a living in places where habitat isn’t really good,” Lane told the committee. Opponents said the legislation was a knee-jerk reaction to predation problems, that the Game and Fish Department is doing a good job, and that the change could encourage unscrupulous hunting practices...more