Texas must protect its mountain lions and ban footholds | Opinion
FILE - This Dec. 12, 2019, file photo provided by the National Park Service shows a mountain lion, newly dubbed P-79 with a new tracking collar, following its capture in Simi Valley, Calif. California wildlife regulators voted in 2020 to move forward on a proposal to give state Endangered Species Act protections to certain mountain lion populations that have become vulnerable because of development and other human activities. No such protections exist in Texas.
A TPWD study in 1999 monitored 16 mountain lions in the Big Bend area. All 16 were killed by humans; 15 in footholds. A more recent study, soon to be published in the scientific journal Wildlife Society Bulletin, records a nearly 50% mortality rate among mountain lions in the Davis Mountains, almost entirely due to trapping.
Require anyone who kills a mountain lion to report it to TPWD, just the way harvest reports are required for deer or other game animals. Those are a good start but we would go further and outlaw footholds altogether. There is simply no good reason to allow them, and plenty of reasons to restrict them.If opposition arises to this proposal, it will likely come from the livestock industry. To be sure, ranchers have the right to protect their herds, but they can do so with open hunting seasons or live traps just as easily as with footholds.
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