Maybe they should have just asked the lion to stop…

I’m a hunter; no ‘animal rights’ or ‘bleeding heart’. AGFD and FWS are mis-managing the Kofa NWR and bighorn. Try to think for yourself more often. Daniel Patterson, Tucson

Mr. MacFarlane, I have not had access to a personal computer for most of the last month so I was unable to make a timely response to this post. This is an update, with my perspective, of the Kofa lion/wilderness issues and associated hunting philosophies.

There are many issues occurring at Kofa NWR, including an on-going lawsuit regarding the illegal water developments within Kofa wilderness and the killing of a satellite radio-collared lion that was the first research subject in a cougar study I initiated in 2005 before retiring. Pursuant to these 2 crises, the Kofa refuge manager left his job and had his going-away party last week before moving to a position in Region 6 of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. He is cited in the lawsuit and he transferred out in the middle of the legal fray. I will let the readers of your blog determine why that may have occurred. I do not think anyone should back away from something as critical as management of an important refuge without dealing with problems that person was principally responsible for causing by acquiescing to the Arizona Game and Fish Department (Department) and local hunter groups. However, the manager’s departure was likely welcome news for him and most assuredly for those of us who are aware of the mismanagement that occurred during his 2.5-year tenure. He is off to supervise all the refuge managers of a 4-state area. I trust that he has learned the lessons that honest, open, forthright communications with all members of the public, whom he and other federal and state public servants must answer to and are obligated to serve, is the only correct method to garner public support and understanding, even on tough, controversial decisions.

The Kofa and Department staffs have recently made management decisions without public involvement, as required by law. I understand why you and most of us trust the wildlife agencies’ decisions first, with the benefit of the doubt freely given. I once tended to be so inclined, but today’s world is different. Today’s management of Kofa NWR is based mostly on what hunter groups alone want without consideration for the national interests of wildlife management on Kofa. I want your readers to clearly understand that I consider ethical, controlled, and well-managed hunting of wildlife an inalienable right, if harvest numbers are based on the best available, unbiased scientific evidence. To paraphrase one writer’s philosophy: Hunting is amoral; it is simply not a question of whether or not hunting is immoral or moral. However, in the ever increasing world of habitat loss, biodiversity is a critical aspect of management that is not being considered with equal consideration to hunting opportunities.

Wilderness is a benefit to hunting and gives the avid, ethical hunter an opportunity to pursue prey using his skills to search for spoor in the spirit of fair chase, instead of hanging around a conveniently located artificial water hole development for a relatively easy kill that most any unskilled “hunter” can do, a la “game farm style harvest” with a beverage in one hand and a loaded firearm in the other. The jealous, enviable hunter’s nemesis, the cougar, as the most efficient natural predator/hunter, is likely to have had his range of available habitats increased by the anthropogenic artificial waters that also draw a certain class of hunters. Then man blames the influx of lions on outside, external pressures instead of the unintended consequences wildlife managers and volunteers themselves most likely created by installing new, or improving on existing, water sources. Then to kill a young tom cougar, whose niche was provided for him through the direct human involvement of water hole developments, for killing 1 Kofa bighorn sheep, but still allowing up to 13 hunter-killed bighorn in the upcoming December 2007 hunting season, is unconscionable, inconsistent, and double standard wildlife management, especially during a demonstrably precipitous population decline.

From my standpoint, I see wildlife science as dead on Kofa; decisions are based on traditional biases in an underhanded way, in favor of hunters’ demands, without regard for scientific evidence, or the lack there of . Anyone without wildlife management experience can make the poor, short-sighted decisions some skilled wildlife scientists are currently making on Kofa. The dishonesty and secrecy exhibited are dismaying and I do not understand the faulty, biased reasoning.

I look forward to the day the Kofa bighorn herd recovers, if it is allowed to rebound, by giving the population a chance to spring back from the multifactorial causes of the bighorn decline. I long to see the return of quality hunting of Kofa rams and the relocation of ewes to other areas of traditional bighorn habitat that once were available in the days when I frequently observed bands of 10 to 15 Kofa bighorn in the 1970s and 1980s. I want to see hunters have the opportunity, once again, to harvest the high 170 to 180 B&C class rams I once checked following successful hunter harvests during my duties as a federal game warden. Any recovery might take a decade or more, if ever. Recent monsoonal storms, dropping over 5.5 inches of rain this summer in some areas on Kofa, are encouraging for habitat quality improvements. The summer vegetation is greener than I have seen it in decades. However, if current management strategies of continuing to hunt the remaining most ecologically and genetically fit rams while concurrently disturbing the alarmingly low numbers of the remaining most fit ewes during critical lambing periods, those actions will both ensure a further decline of ewes and rams.

I have written volumes elsewhere, in letters to the editor, recommendations to the agencies that were largely ignored, comments in newspaper interviews, etc., associated with all aspects of my disagreement with the agencies’ recent management decisions since my retirement, about 1.6 years ago. Some bighorn guides and hunters understand and agree that continuing to hunt and disturb the Kofa population will lead the herd across a population threshold towards inviability that may be irreversible. No wise rancher, farmer, or animal husbandman would remove the prime breeders and producers of his livestock herd, especially during a crisis. He hedges his bets and ensures that the most valuable animals are preserved and culls his other stock until markets recover. Kofa bighorn management is at a similar analogical stage with years of consumptive culling, involving excessive hunting and translocations, which have resulted in a major cause of the current population crisis. Nature, to the fullest extent allowable, should be given the opportunity to manage a rebound of this herd with the minimal help of, but certainly without consumptive interference from, well-meaning but illogical wildlife managers that have forsaken their cumulative wildlife management skills and experience for political expediency to please one segment of the public at the expense of a unique population of irreplaceable bighorn that have survived the adversities of evolutionary pressures in this habitat for over 10,000 years, but cannot survive the excessive cultural evolutionary pressures of humankind.

To conclude, please bear in mind that before the consumptive uses of hunting and capture/translocations were accelerated, the estimated population of Kofa bighorn was consistently 800 to 1000 bighorn without the long-range benefits of the more recent water developments concurrent with those activities. Those water developments did not result in more bighorn “on the mountain” or the population would not be in decline. However, the evidence is mounting that since the early 1980s, and concurrent with the establishment of new water developments and improvement of existing natural water holes (tinajas), the lion population has incrementally, though not rapidly, increased possibly as a result of those “improvements”. Additionally, the perceived cougar “problem” is likely a symptom of the decline rather than a major causative factor of the population’s reduction.

Evolution, not mankind, molded this desert species of bighorn to adapt the ability to dwell on Kofa, therefore, those same evolutionary processes deserve an opportunity to regain the natural control that once occurred before man over-managed through well-meaning, though somewhat misguided, manipulative wildlife management strategies. Kofa National Wildlife Refuge simply needs a break from all consumptive and non-consumptive uses that threaten the viability of Kofa bighorn. I think the recovery of the bighorn herd to previous levels of 600 to 800 sheep can only be accomplished through the application of custodial wildlife management with associated minimally intrusive scientific monitoring and conservative research.

Remember Pusch Ridge.

Ron Kearns
Retired Kofa NWR Wildlife Biologist
Former Federal Collateral Duty Refuge Law Enforcement Officer
Viet Nam Era Veteran

Kofa bighorn have intrinsic value far superior to and with precedence over all extrinsic consumptive uses wild sheep could be subjected to. Kofa NWR bighorn management strategies (and managers) will have demonstrably failed and irresponsibly damaged the quality of this extant population if non-indigenous translocated bighorn are ever imported into the Refuge for recompensive attempts to salvage a mismanaged, once prolific viable deme. Ron Kearns

DR — I agree with Mr. Kearns here. I am an ecologist. I formerly worked with BLM on wildlife conservation. I am a hunter. Just got my fall wild turkey tag. We should all largely be in agreement here. Don’t trust AGFD or FWS too much. Thanks, DRP

Possibly, but not in this case.

Forage is usually the limiting factor for bighorn, as well as disease from domestic livestock that are still often are allowed in bighorn habitat.

Predation is a part of the natural web-of-life, and can help keep bighorn herds strong by culling weak sheep.