Plan to Restore Lion Hunts Stirs Emotional Struggle

Lobbyist Bill Yeates sees the debate over the future of mountain lions in California as a classic struggle.

“It’s an almost religious fight on both sides,” Yeates, who lobbies for the Mountain Lion Coalition, said in a recent interview. “The hunters view our position as taking away their right to hunt, to carry a gun, their entire conservative way of life.”

Yeats said his organization is “absolutely unbending” in its opposition to shooting mountain lions for sport. The conflicting positions, Yeates observed, do not “allow for a lot of room to try to work something out.”

Kent DeChambeau, who represents the California Rifle and Pistol Assn., an arm of the National Rifle Assn., agreed: “As far as I’m concerned, this is the hunter versus the non-hunter.”

Indeed, the debate over whether the California Fish and Game Commission should lift a 15-year ban on hunting the big cats has focused more on hunters’ rights than on game management or wildlife biology. Friday is the commission’s day of decision, and as the moment draws near the battle has become increasingly emotional, the campaign more intense.

At issue is whether the commission should approve the Department of Fish and Game’s proposal for a 79-day hunting season, during which as many as 210 lions could be killed. The hunt would be the first since the Legislature imposed a moratorium on hunting the lions in 1971, a ban that expired a year ago after Gov. George Deukmejian vetoed a bill that would have extended it.

Advocates of protecting the mountain lion from hunting acknowledge that the animal, which is hunted in every Western state except California, is not an endangered species. And they have presented no evidence to suggest that the proposed issuance of 210 hunting permits would adversely affect the lion population in the state.

At the same time, hunters and Department of Fish and Game biologists concede that the proposed season would do little or nothing to decrease the number of deer and livestock killed by lions--long a stated concern of sportsmen and ranchers. They also acknowledge that there is no reason to believe that hunting will reduce contacts between lions and people, such as the two maulings of Orange County children in the last year.

All-Out Offensive

But none of that has prevented either side from launching an all-out offensive on the issue, complete with mailers, petition drives, celebrity testimonials and all the vitriol of a political campaign.

Some proponents of the department’s plan have said that anyone who argues against lion hunting should be prepared to assume responsibility for any additional maulings that occur in California. In a return volley, the most extreme opponents of the hunting season have said that the attacks by lions are simply the price humans pay for encroaching on the big cats’ habitat.

So hard fought has the battle become that at least one opponent of the proposal warned hunters at a recent hearing that those who venture into the wilds to shoot lions could become targets themselves. Sportsmen, in turn, have asked the commission to approve regulations prohibiting hunter harassment.

Lobbyist Yeates concedes that the governor’s veto put the burden on the preservationists to show why the lions, also known as cougars, should not be hunted. Of the 13 other game mammals under the commission’s jurisdiction, only the Nelson bighorn sheep is not now hunted, and the commission last month tentatively approved a season for that species.

‘Burden Is on Us’

“The argument you get from the commission or the staff is: ‘Look, the lion is a game mammal, and we have a policy that encourages sport hunting. Therefore, we’re mandated to hunt this animal,’ ” Yeates said. “The burden is on us to overcome that assumption.”

To do so, mountain lion advocates have launched a campaign aimed at generating enough public opinion to sway the commission against the hunt. They have hired a public relations firm to lobby newspapers for their editorial support, and actor Robert Redford has taped radio and television spots backing their position.

Opponents of the hunt expect to generate as many as 60,000 signatures to be delivered either to the commission or to Deukmejian, who despite his own department’s recommendation has steadfastly stayed out of the debate on the issue. Deukmejian, considered an ally of the hunting community, has insisted that the decision is up to the commission, four of whose members he appointed. One was named by former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.

The Mountain Lion Preservation Foundation, formed last year as a fund-raising arm of the effort, has sent a mailer to 9,000 Californians featuring a picture of a wall-mounted lion and the warning, “Unless we act now, wall trophies like this one may be all that remains of the mountain lion in California.” Another 20,000 fund-raising letters went out last week.

Cite Plight of Grizzly

The foundation’s literature often compares the lion’s plight to that of the grizzly bear, which was hunted to extinction in California.

Lacking evidence that the lion is endangered, opponents of the hunt have attempted to discredit the conclusion of state biologists that the lion population is stable and unthreatened.

At the Fish and Game Commission’s March meeting, for example, Sharon Negri, president of the foundation, told the panel that a survey of mountain lion experts casts doubt on the methods the state used to count the lions, and Negri suggested that the lions’ secretive nature makes it impossible to accurately estimate their numbers. But results of Negri’s survey showed that only two of 15 biologists who responded to the group’s questionnaire agreed with the foundation’s contention.

“The key is that the governor and the commission have to look at public opinion,” Negri said. “There’s too much opposition to open a trophy-hunting season at this time. Much more needs to be known before they can think of making a big management decision on the mountain lion.”

The pro-hunting lobby has responded in kind. The California Sportsman’s Lobby, the California Rifle and Pistol Assn. and the National Rifle Assn., which were instrumental in persuading Deukmejian to veto the bill that would have continued the hunting ban, have jumped into the fray with a vengeance.

Game Management Tool

These groups have argued before the commission that sport hunting is needed as a tool in game management. Hunters upset over the declining numbers of deer have been most prominent in the debate. They argue that lions must be controlled so that deer, the cats’ favorite prey, can build up surpluses to be “harvested” by hunters. Ranchers, who already have the right to shoot lions that prey on their livestock, have also argued strongly for the hunting season.

However, only about 25% of the 210 hunters who would be issued permits under the department proposal would be expected to be successful, and many sportsmen acknowledge that taking perhaps 50 lions out of a population that they believe exceeds 5,000 would have little effect on deer or livestock.

Similarly, the state’s biologists have said that they expect the lion population to quickly replenish itself through natural means. A lion habitat can support a given number of cats, they say. If the lions are not hunted, the cats limit themselves naturally. If lions are removed, the population returns to whatever level the environment can sustain.

“This has nothing to do with game management,” said Bud Hemman, a spokesman for several Central Valley hunting groups that favor a much more liberal hunting season with as many as 1,000 permits. “Taking that many lions will do nothing to benefit the rest of our wildlife. It will not bring predators and prey back into balance. . . . It is pure and simple a trophy hunt.”

Still, the hunting lobby sees opposition to the department proposal as a threat to hunters’ rights, and the hunting community’s leaders have portrayed the confrontation in those terms.

Show ‘Who Has the Clout’

David Marshall, the NRA’s Sacramento lobbyist, said he grew frustrated trying to negotiate with the environmentalists and decided to show them “who has the clout in this state.” The NRA recently sent letters to about 10% of its 300,000 California members to seek their help on the mountain lion issue.

“Your gun and hunting rights are directly on the line in California!” the letter said. “The NRA and the California Rifle and Pistol Assn. have pledged not to give another inch to the opponents of gun ownership and sports hunting who are relying on emotional appeals to the public to accomplish their goals.”

DeChambeau of the Rifle and Pistol Assn. said his group had no choice but to respond to the petition and letter campaign waged by opponents of the hunt. Though the commission’s mail so far has run 8 to 1 in opposition to the hunting season, DeChambeau and the NRA’s lobbyist predicted that the commission would be flooded with letters and petitions from hunters this week.