Readers React: Sen. Tom Coburn’s unjustified attack on scientists

To the editor: Biologist Terrie M. Williams’ response to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and his “wastebook” demagoguery should draw the attention of responsible and thinking Americans. (“As species decline, so does research funding,” Op-Ed, Nov. 6)

Who do you trust, a career politician pursuing voter attention by highlighting what he thinks is wasteful government research — in Williams’ Case, Coburn said she spent $856,000 teaching mountain lions to walk on a treadmill — or a selfless professor who seeks to protect wild animals and reduce threats to humans?

Coburn is willing to sacrifice such humanitarian efforts for his political well-being.

Jim Hoover, Huntington Beach

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To the editor: One can but wonder why Oklahoma’s junior senator would favor human children being eaten by mountain lions.

Fatal attacks by cougars have made headlines often enough over the last few years to justify the research on large predators by Williams and others, and I vividly recall the posters in a California campground years ago warning of a toddler who had been killed by a coyote.

Mike Jelf, Lomita

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