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ODFW and US F&WS
Dupe the Public
Lying about Lion

By Bud Sonnentag
US~Observer Exclusive

My dad and the men I spent my life working with taught me priceless lessons about human nature. One of these being: it is not so much what people say that you need to keep an eye on, but more… what it is they won’t or don’t say. What people know but surreptitiously hide or refuse to tell you about a subject can be revealing—and lethal. They feel they are under no ethical obligation to divulge certain information especially if it jeopardizes their employment, career or retirement. Up pops the state and federal diploma carrying biologists from Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to manipulate the emotions and minds of the uneducated and unwary citizens about how they as experts think mountain lions should be managed. No one - no matter who you are or how much field experience you may have attained about the mountain lion through life’s experiences and commonsense will ever equal the biologist’s university diploma. Our nation has glorified education beyond any reproach and has all but “murdered” common sense which comes down from our fore-fathers through hands on experience and not necessarily text books.

Oregon’s state and federal wildlife agencies manage mountain lions by deliberately playing on the emotions and sentiments of 96% of Oregonians for the sole purpose of their job security. This is at the expense of 4% of the hunter sportsmen who pay for it through the Pittman Robertson funds.

I’ve made some powerful statements now let’s back them up. I’ve listed a few topics below that biologically indoctrinated fish and game agents won’t discuss publicly for fear of losing their careers and retirements through “in-house” censuring or out-right losing “control” over public sentiment.

1. Why is 3,000 a perfect number of lions in Oregon?
2. What are protected off limit areas for mountain lion hunting?
3. Is extirpation, annihilation or extermination of mountain lions possible?
4. Litter size of lions and ratio of tom to female.
5. Correct nomenclature for mountain lion species.
6. Oregon’s success story, but what about Texas?

1. Anyone who has read the Oregon Cougar Management Plan cannot help but wonder how ODFW came up with their “magic” number of 3,000 mountain lions being the perfect number for the State of Oregon. You don’t need to be a biologist or a rocket scientist to see that not only do the 2,101 surplus mountain lions in Oregon kill wildlife, so do the remaining 3,000 mountain lions the ODFW wants to protect. They need about 3,000 lions in order to justify all their jobs and future studies… simply said. Of course a few more billions bled out of the sportsmen and taxpayers would sure be appreciated by these mountain lion magicians. Do these ODFW biologists think that the protected 3,000 lions eat less red meet every day than the 2,101 they plan to kill? There is no sane biological reason to protect 3,000 lions when they have the ability to “kill” (not necessarily eat) 250,000 deer and/or elk a year in Oregon. I draw attention to the other articles in this newspaper to support what I’m getting at. Three thousand lions are an arbitrary number to appease the anti’s and attempt to quiet the hunter sportsmen with the ODFW making themselves referees using P.R. sportsmen funds to do it. ODFW’s moral high ground propaganda approach to the public is rapidly becoming their swamp as America becomes educated to their 50 year mountain lion mismanagement ruse.

2. and 3. Biologists have a word for areas that are off limits to all hunting including state and federal lion hunters. They call these areas reservoirs but I refer to them as sensitive protected areas. They can also include wilderness areas so vast that it’s impossible for the hunter to penetrate them on foot. Take out any recent Road Atlas and examine how many thousands of square miles of land Oregon and the western states have set aside with no hunting protected areas. These include military lands, National Parks & Monuments, Indian reservations, Wildlife refuges and of course Wilderness areas. What the state and federal biologists don’t want you to know is that these areas are no hunting sanctuaries for mountain lions which will forever remain untouchable by man. Nevada alone has in excess of 8,000 square miles of these protected areas; Utah is close behind and Oregon’s doing their damnedest to catch up. Even as biologists have learned where that unseen line is drawn between the anti’s and hunters and exploit it to the maximum for their monetary survival, so does the mountain lion quickly learn the unseen line that makes up the border of these sensitive protected areas for their survival. Yes… it is physically impossible to annihilate mountain lions from any state just because of these vast areas, even if an all out effort was attempted to exterminate them. The key word here is impossible. The ODFW does not want you to know that mountain lions can cover over 20 miles as easily as you can on a Saturday jog. Woe betides the cattlemen or wildlife that live anywhere within 20 miles of these protected areas when these lions come out at night to feed and learn how to return back before day light. Concerning lions that have been tagged - ODFW and US F&WS do not want you to know mountain lions can travel 700 miles from the place where they were first tagged. Though this is a record I can prove by witness, the lions range is easily 200 miles in a very short time if the “need” arises. Extermination of this carnivorous cat is virtually impossible. The US has at its disposal the most sophisticated equipment in the world and yet cannot capture Osama Bin Ladin. How are lowly biologists or hunters in Oregon going to kill 2,101 mountain lions when they aren’t allowed on these protected lands and face insurmountable Oregon weather and terrain? The fact is… they can’t. They have a problem and won’t admit “they” have caused it and can’t control it. Biologists won’t admit they can’t kill lions as fast as they breed and reproduce due to this lion population explosion they have allowed to occur. They want you to believe other wise.

4. and 5. The ODFW and US F&WS don’t want you to know that mountain lion litters favor females to toms by 2 to 1. Oregon biologist’s documented this in their own management plan on page 26 with “14 toms / 24 females” and contradict themselves on page 5 by saying “sex ratio of cubs at birth is normally equal.” Nevada Jim Ornellas, a world class houndsman and mountain lion specialist in his own right has verified this positive sex ratio of more females than toms by dissecting hundreds of dead, pregnant females over his 60 year career in Nevada. Here comes the biologist of today to convince the world that the female needs “special” protection when nature has already stacked the deck in the lions favor. The biologists deserve the title of wildlife eco-terrorists. Now do you see where I’m coming from? There is no biological reason to protect the female. The ODFW and US F&WS propaganda is designed to stir up the emotions of the uneducated masses against the hunter sportsmen and to give these agencies leverage against both groups to better their positions. When all else fails you can count on ODFW to bring out their trump cards in the news media—don’t kill the females—call their young “kittens” and not the proper name cubs - scare the hell out of the public with extermination of mountain lions by over exploitation - throw their snare of “habitat destruction” over the unsuspecting public. And here’s one for the road, lions were nearly extinct in 1961. Can the public trust the ODFW anymore?

6. Anyone who would truly like to see a remarkable mountain lion success story needs to look at Texas and not Oregon as an example of basic “cougar management 101” to see how it’s done. This will never happen by Oregon biologists because Oregon is 53% federally owned whereas Texas is 98% privately owned land. There are few feds in Texas…get it? The feds hold the money bag. Where there is no federal influence there is no problem. Isn’t that the way it should be in Oregon sportsmen? Having watched the senseless sacrificial predatory destruction and decline of our precious game animals most of my life as a hunter sportsman I offer this suggestion to bring it to an end. I call the hunter sportsmen of the western states to consider bringing a massive class action law suit against all the western states fish and game agencies (except Texas) and to list the United States Fish and Wildlife Service as a defendant. I suggest the sportsmen of this nation move to take all game animals and their natural predators away from the US F&WS and all the animals that are left over can be managed by the feds to do whatever they----well please. The state fish and game agencies will be restructured to facilitate conservationist hunter sportsmen, game animals and the Pittman Robertson act of 1937 as it was originally intended. This is not wishful thinking...but rather basic cougar management 101. This is a must if we are to keep our hunting heritage and our guns. Let’s send them a message - we either care or we don’t, if we do then let’s join hands and get started.

Log on to www.huntersalert.org or write to:
Bud Sonnentag
PO Box 72
Gabbs NV, 89409

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