In the early 1970s, Idaho began a campaign of protection for the Mountain Lion, cougar, panther, or puma, whatever you want to call them. Felis concolor was removed from “predator” designation and was afforded some protection as a big game species. Since that time, cougar populations have gone up throughout most of the state. Nobody knows by how much. Idaho Department of Fish and Game is responsible for their management, but has no system in place to monitor the population of cougars other than to monitor the harvest. This essay is in no way meant to be an indictment of cougars or of IDF&G. Rather, it is an attempt to explain the impending loss of another wildlife species, the porcupine, from the environs of Idaho. Now, I’m making a rather large assumption. I’m assuming that the population downturn of the porcupine is due, 100 percent, to the concomitant increase in the population size of cougars. The mountain lions are simply eating them when the situation presents itself. I’ll admit, rarely in the vagaries of wildlife populations are things so simple, but I sure see the relationship in this case. Now, is this necessarily a bad thing? Having fewer porcupines on the landscape, one could argue, is a good thing. It saves our dogs and our vet bills by eliminating the dog\porcupine conflicts. Undoubtedly, it leads to better regeneration of domestic and wild trees. Our remote cabins are free from the urine and defecation smells of the unwanted inhabitants. On the other hand, there is potentially less food for the fisher, the fox, and the coyote. There is less on the landscape. One must ask, too, if the porcupine population might have been artificially high 50 years ago? Lions were harvested at a much higher rate than now. Were lion populations artificially low, and in that era in which porcupines were ubiquitous was really the anomaly? Wherever the balance is “supposed” to be, it has recently tipped in favor of Felis concolor, to the detriment of the porcupine.

Rather than quit here with a problem statement, I would propose a solution. Under Idaho regulation, annually allow the legal harvest of 1 (a single) cougar per licensed trapper. Incidental catches of lions are escalating, and allowing trappers to utilize the pelts, skulls, and meat would be advantageous and in many cases the lion would be consumed.

Gullo,
Like all of your observations you are 100% correct. Lions flip porcupine on their back and make quick work of them and are immune to their quills. When the Lion population increases the porcupines decrease. Lions love to eat them.
You can read much more about this subject from Del Cameron's book "Call of the Hounds"

Interesting.....same population scenarios of cougar and porcupine in Oregon as well....at least my own observation

I find lions and porkies both a pain in the rear. At least porkies don't eat deer, elk and.livestock. Hope I never have to pull any more quills from critters though. Not sure where a happy medium is.
ODFW has no clue how many lions exist or are killed every year. They do have numbers though. Regulation of money and people is more important than animals.

As you have intimated, balance between big cats and their prey is likely going on here. As in most predator/prey population balance, it is seldom steady and unchanging. It tends to fluctuate, sometimes in predictable cycles.
When man steps in to protect one, the other one suffers, but then again, there is suffering going on with both predator and pray under natural progression of the natural cycle.
Unburdened by what man does, when prey species becomes high, predators benefit greatly until they eat themselves out of house and home, then not so good for the predator. From feast to famine. Meanwhile I am sure that the prey aren't to keen on the idea of the rise of predator populations. All they can do is counter it with is the advantage of a higher reproductive capacity to replenish over time faster than the predators can in that same time span.
Personally, if I am adequately armed, I would much rather have a glimpse of a mountain lion than a porcupine.

I proposed this very thing to the game commission in Oregon. They went dead silent and stared at me like I’d peed in the punch bowl! Then very quietly I was asked “do you understand what the public would do to us?”. So much for science based management practices.

My friend, Dwight Scott, raised a lot of the cougars they used to build back the population. He used to sell the excess cougars at the Lucasville Swap Meet in Ohio. Dwight looks like a shorter, more stout, Grizzly Adams.

Keith

Gulo, have you, or are planning to, introduce this to the IDFG? I feel people should be responsible for managing any wildlife to the benefit of all.

Being only 45 years old, I obviously wasn't around here fifty years ago. But there sure doesn't seem to be a shortage of porkies in my area of Idaho. Yes lions eat Porcupine, as do bobcat and fisher, I've never seen a coyote eat one though. I think in this area fisher are likely a lot more detrimental to the porky population than lions, because there are a lot more of them than lions. Again I don't see a shortage of porkies, but if we were going to open up trapping for some species to lower the impact on porkies I would personally rather see them open up a limited fisher season.

As for Oregon, the ODFW does have numbers, they have hired hunters and trappers that kill a tremendous number of lions every year, they just don't allow sportsmen to do so. Of course they aren't going to give you those numbers unless you force them to. You could file through the Freedom of Information, but I suspect you would need a court order to force them to actually provide you with the numbers.

Allow mountain lion trapping, and you'll have the antis putting all their money to stopping or greatly restricting trapping. It sucks, but is the sad reality. It's the main reason they won't do it in Nevada, and we still have the antis down our throats because of incidental catches.

Before I retired from the Utah Division of Wildlife Management (nine years ago) I was on a committee looking at long term cougar management plans. I suggested allowing trappers to harvest one cougar in units they wanted more harvest (bighorn reintroduction areas and where deer populations were being unduly suppressed). It was not seriously considered - I believe for political rather than biological reasons. Well, last year the state legislature took control. They made it legal for anyone with a hunting or trapping license to harvest adult cougars - no season - no limit. Time will tell what impact it has.

We have several units where cougar and black bear populations are both high. And in my opinion the combination is having an underestimated suppressive impact on deer herds. When a lion makes a kill the kill is often scavanged by the bears, and the cougar has to keep killing more deer. I'm hoping more cougar harvest in those areas (like the Book Cliffs) will help our deer herds rebound. Since black bears and cougars became game animals with restrictive harvest, there are many deer units in Utah that just never rebound back toward carrying capacity after severe winters. Struggling mule deer herds across the west is a common theme. Cougars are suppressing more than porcupine populations.

Apex species need controlled by people more than any other. Small prey is controlled quite well by nature and cycles. Large prey have monetary value to states and sportsmen so can be controlled if numbers get large. If numbers get down with apex species numbers up, things end up in a death spiral until all is lost.
Preaching to the choir I know. I wish ODFW was in the choir.

We have some big cats that like to eat racoons and coyotes and the porky's. In the 60's here we had a lot more porky's and kept finding where they were killed and eaten and just guessed it was a cat. The lions I have been around most have old quills in them. Around here you can't try and trap a bobcat because you will see a lion up close and sometimes a good coyote set will catch one.

If they allow a season on lions, they will then be able to create a database for determining how many they have by county if they require mandated kill reporting. This is a valuable management tool used for most game species of concern.

In Texas we do not have a season and the lions are expanding. Two where just sighted around Dallas. Del Cameron's great book "Call of the Hounds" is a good resource on Lions.
We where friends for many years and shared hounds.

Jack,
The subject of trapping lions has came up many many times. Two huge hurdles with it are: the two Idaho houndsmen organizations are loudly against lion trapping especially with all lion quotas lifted back in 2021. Mountain lion harvest has been going up every season since the female quotas being lifted. The two houndsmen organizations were instrumental on endorsing our early wolf seasons and were the single biggest donors for the grizzly lawsuit we are intervenors in so not excited for a turf war. The other main hurdle is lawsuits. The Idaho Trappers Association is very concerned with triggering a lawsuit with allowing lion trapping. These lawsuits can drain every penny that the organization has (see lynx lawsuit from 2004-2018 and grizzly lawsuit from 2022 - now). We have spent probably over 50 grand already on lawsuit in recent years and that is with a ton of support from local groups and FTA/NTA. I know there is a lot of lions, in one week I caught 5 while wolf trapping.
As far as porcupines it depends where you live. Some folks caught close to 50 porkys last season, I only caught 20 or so. There is no shortage of the buggers in some areas that is for sure.

How exactly does ODFW not allow sportsmen to control lions? The voters not ODFW banned hounds. The season is open year round with two tags annually that costs $16.50 and that is the same price for a non-resident too. They relaxed regulations to allow motion decoys a few years ago. The harvest stats are on the website. What else can do to increase lion harvests without it being overruled by the antis in a ballot referendum?

We have the same problem here in Pa with eagles and hawks. Seeing one eagle a month is ok I guess but every second or third time you go fishing or hunting that is getting to the extreme. I guess there is a migration of eagles as in the middle of October we have seen up to 13 at one time flying over the wind mills, they at least group up then. I think they like the different air currents to fly in......jk

Interesting