Re: [Homesteadingfamily] Another couple reasons to hunt deer!

A few years ago here in Oregon they banned the hunting of bears and cougars
with dogs. I'm fine with not using dogs on bears~ the silly things are
easy enough to find if you know where to find them (all over my front
yard!) Cougars on the other hand are next to impossible to track and hunt
without dogs. Since this has happened, the population has exploded. on
ONE famrm in a small community (where I grew up) there were 7~ yes 7 cougars
taken in a matter of months (like 3). that is NEVER heard of. Cougars stay
out of each others territory. They range up to 100 miles. We have one that
travels through our family farm every year. I haven't seen or heard one yet
here, but I've only been here for a month and a half (we don't live on the
family farm). I know they are here, just as I know there are bobcats, elk,
deer, bears and a wide variety of other wildlife.
The cougar population has gotten so bad that they are loosing fear of humans
and spending time outside of schools and homes IN TOWN~ large towns.
Another side effect of this is that there are very few deer and elk roaming
in various parts of the state. It has helped to rid us of the "wasting
disease" but its gotten pretty bad.
I dont want to hear that we are in their territory and we should respect
them. in oregon, the population covers only 4%, yes 4% of the land. we
have HUGE state and national forests. There are HUGE wildlife preserves.

When Wolves were re-introduced into Idaho, we had some move to Oregon. and
they are moving west~ I Love wolves, and I love that there are populations
in the wild. BUT~ again. Without population control they will eat the
wildlife to nothing, and then move onto farmers livestock~ its easy prey.
They get lazy. They have started opening hunts on wolves. Not in Oregon
yet, but you can shoot to save livestock (or people).

Its always going to be an argument of this or that is right. Each area has
its own right. With our weather patterns changing animals are going to take
a few years to acclimate and evolve enough to know when they need to start
feeding up, need to move to new areas to find feed. Just as humans did
hundreds of years ago. They moved to where the food was when it was there.

Hunting and fishing and keeping an excess of preditors down is good. We
dont live in a world where the natural order of things works any longer.
People need to start understanding that.

I'm waiting for one of those people who say "we are in their space" to have
a cat, dog, livestock or heaven forbid a child to be taken. I think in our
area, that's all its going to take. (at least in the towns)

Its an argument that isnt going to stop~

Angelia in OR~

On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 11:28 AM, sarah_johnson@juno.com <
sarah_johnson@juno.com> wrote:

> So reintroduce natural predators. I have nothing against hunting, but
> think wolves and cougars are also an important part of the equation to
> maintaining a more equalized population balance of all mammals. Not only
> are deer numbers too large. There are many other mammals which cause as much
> or more devastation to our land.
>
> -Sarah
>

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