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marketrent OP t1_jd0xu1i wrote

Excerpt from the linked content:^1,2

>Mountain lions are protected from hunting in California by a law passed by popular vote in 1990.

>However, a team of researchers working across the state found that human-caused mortality — primarily involving conflict with humans over livestock and collisions with vehicles — was more common than natural death for this protected large carnivore.

>[Lead author] Benson and his colleagues found that mountain lions were at greater risk of mortality from humans when they were closer to rural development.

>They also found that mountain lions were less likely to die in areas where there were higher proportions of voters in favor of pro-environmental initiatives.

>[The] new study showed that populations of mountain lions in California experiencing greater human-caused mortality also had lower population-level survival rates, suggesting that humans do indeed increase overall mortality.

>Most research on mountain lions is conducted at relatively small scales, which limits understanding of mortality caused by humans across the large areas they roam.

>To address this, scientists from multiple universities, government agencies and private organizations teamed up to better understand human-caused mortality for mountain lions across the entire state of California.

>The team tracked almost 600 mountain lions in 23 different study areas, including the Sierra Nevada, the northern redwoods, wine country north of San Francisco, the city of Los Angeles and many other areas of the state.

^1 University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 20 Mar. 2023, https://www.ucdavis.edu/climate/news/humans-are-leading-source-death-california-mountain-lions-despite-hunting-protections

^2 John Benson et al. (2023) The ecology of human-caused mortality for a protected large carnivore. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120 (13) e2220030120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2220030120

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KillerJupe t1_jd2srv4 wrote

I know too many people who go out of their way to shoot coyotes and mountain lions and then say “protecting their two chickens.” People suck

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true_bro t1_jd4g78g wrote

Have you ever raised chickens? Have you ever depended on their eggs or meat for income or survival? Caring for chickens is a hell of a lot of work and can be quickly destroyed by a wild dog or cat. Not really sure humans suck for protecting their livestock / income / food safety / hobby etc.

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okaybubbaretard t1_jd30oqv wrote

If big naked men with knives for fingers wandered around the wilderness and sometimes ate people they’d be gone in a day. Not advocating this but saying that natural predator pops are something to watch closely

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[deleted] t1_jd102mn wrote

[deleted]

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MatsThyWit t1_jd10vej wrote

>So what? Can’t really do anything about vehicle collisions, people in rural areas sometimes need to protect livestock… 4-6000 individuals is a pretty healthy population considering how massive their territories are. What is this study trying to even say?

The article is trying desperately to make some statistics meaningful...but they really aren't.

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dumnezero t1_jd2djjw wrote

>Mortality risk increased for mountain lions closer to rural development and decreased in areas with higher proportions of citizens voting to support environmental initiatives. Thus, the presence of human infrastructure and variation in the mindset of humans sharing landscapes with mountain lions appear to be primary drivers of risk.

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fegodev t1_jd3ixn9 wrote

By weight, only 4% of land animals are wild animals. The rest is farm animals and humans. That 4% left is the one that gets actively hunted. We humans are destroying the ecosystem and fail to see that we are part of it, so we’re effectively destroying ourselves.

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Fixing_The_World t1_jdhcpm9 wrote

I worked with mountain lions in California.

A major problem is humans in rural areas killing them on site and burying their remnants to hide it. The killing often was not invoked by livestock death either.

We found many mountain lions in livestock areas. We would then check to see if there were any losses if livestock with land owners without them knowing a lion was present. A large majority did not have unaccounted animals. Yet, a very large majority would become quite upset when they found out there was a mountain lion present even though they were not seeing losses.

It seems it's often immediately presumed by many ranchers that mountain lions are the biggest adversity they face even though our data didn't show that. It seems there is a bias mindset involved that leads to excessive death in rural areas sadly.

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JerkAssFool t1_jd30kdd wrote

Hillbilly’s don’t like cats. The cats are smarter than they are.

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bibliophile785 t1_jd32y83 wrote

People who depend on livestock for their livelihoods don't like large predators poaching them. We all tend to prioritize the things that affect us directly and ignore those things which fail to do so. You don't have to worry about livestock depredation, so you get to prioritize abstract environmental sentiment. You do have to deal with the weather and get to work, though, and so you burn fossil fuels for your commute and to cool your home. You could conceivably just sweat all day like your forebears did for millennia, but that would actually make your life harder... and so you don't. Just so for ranchers and mountain lions.

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Sad-Calligrapher4639 t1_jd1p2ks wrote

Any large predator that lives in close proximity to people and is not hunted becomes in acceptably dangerous. Be glad for these human caused deaths.

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Haterbait_band t1_jd0yzll wrote

Maybe someone should inform the mountain lions that humans = bad. It’s not like people expect others to allow some big carnivore to eat their pets/livestock, protected species or not. Maybe we just need to do something to keep the mountain lions from coming into human habitats? Like, maybe release a bunch of rabbits into the wild so they have food to eat?

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Lady-Seashell-Bikini t1_jd1duec wrote

Rabbits are not a good food source for mountain lions, but there are options. Colorado is currently working with livestock managers after wolves were reintroduced to the area. One option is to reimburse any livestock lost to wolves.

Nothing can really be done about pets except to keep them under supervision. Even if you live in an area with no large predators, you need to watch your pets anyway (heck, my dog got dangerously close to a deer once, which could easily trample her).

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dumnezero t1_jd2dpuq wrote

>maybe release a bunch of rabbits

The ranchers will kill the rabbits because they're competing with the cows for pasture.

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Haterbait_band t1_jd37nja wrote

Ah, makes sense. I guess anything that could cost them money needs to be dealt with.

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