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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 6, 2019)
4A • COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL • FEBRUARY 6, 2019 O PINION The First Amendment Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridg- ing the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition their Government for a redress of greivences. Letters to the Editor Policy Th e Sentinel welcomes letters to the editor as part of a community discussion of issues on the local, state and national level. Emailed letters are preferred. Handwritten or typed letters must be signed. All letters need to include full name, address and phone number; only name and city will be printed. Letters should be limited to about 300 words. Letters are subject to editing for length, grammar and clarity. Publication of any letter is not guaranteed and depends on space available and the volume of letters received. Letters that are anonymous, libelous, argumentative, sarcastic or contain accusations that are unsourced or without documentation will not be published. Letters containing poetry or from outside Th e Sentinel readership area will only be published at the discretion of the editor. Political/Election Letters: Guest Viewpoint Oregon cougar management requires looking back to plan ahead By Duane Dungannon Jim Akenson T he fatal cougar attack on a hiker in the Mount Hood National Forest last year was a tragic thing. Evidence evalua- tion indicated the cougar was a female in good health. Is this a surprise? Not really. Cougar numbers are at all-time highs for our state, and the distribution of these cats encompasses the entire state. What has accounted for this cougar population expansion from an estimation of less than 3,000 in the mid-1990s to well over 6,000 today? Some of the answer is biological, some is social, and much is connected to management capabilities and practices. We need to fi nd a way to re- turn to this socio-biological balance, and looking to the recent past might just be the best bet — back to a time when hound hunting was a legal and eff ective manage- ment tool in Oregon. What are the consequences of there be- ing double the number of cougars in Or- egon? Th ese eff ects are best described as alarming and pattern changing. One such pattern is for prey animals, specifi cally deer, relocating to human development areas to avoid a higher predation risk. Th is relocation is also drawing in cougars that will go where the next meal can be found. Many hunters and state wildlife manag- ers report that deer are now less abundant in the wilder mountain, high desert, and canyon regions of our state. Meanwhile, Oregon cities are wrestling with the num- ber of deer inhabiting city limits, and cougars are showing up in backyards and schoolyards. As cougars become more comfortable in human-altered landscapes, the proba- bility of negative encounters with humans, as well as pets and livestock, increases. So, what is the solution? Biologically, it is plain and simple — more intensive cou- gar management through various hunting techniques. With an estimated population of 6,400 cougars, and roughly 14,000 peo- ple hunting cougars and harvesting from 250 to 300 cats per year, this only equals a harvest rate of four percent, which is not enough to even fl atten the ever-rising cou- gar population curve. Reducing human threat, increasing deer and elk survival, and bringing a cougar population back in balance with other interests in our state will require in- creased management action and effi cien- cy. According to the 2017 Oregon Cougar Management Plan, the success rate for 2016 cougar hunters was 1.9 percent, with 13,879 people reporting that they did hunt cougars. Contrast that with 1994 data, the last year that dogs were allowed in conser- vatively controlled, limited-entry cougar hunting, showing 358 people hunted cou- gars and harvested 144 for a success rate of 40.2 percent. Bottom line: hunting ef- fi ciency with dogs is dramatically higher, and provides wildlife managers a reliable tool for maintaining the cougar popula- tion within its management objectives. Oregon’s cougar management and re- cord keeping are divided into six zones, each of which is assigned a desired har- vest quota to keep the population in bal- ance with the varied activities of all Or- egonians. Employing the current limited management methods, only one of the six zones has met the harvest quota in recent years. A criterion for quota establishment is complaint frequency. By far the most cou- gar complaints are recorded on the west side of the Cascades, including the coast- al region, in Zones A and B. Th is is also where the bulk of the human population lives. More than 350 cougar complaints per year were received during the last de- cade in these two zones. Unfortunately, this recording system was not initiated until 2001, so we don’t have data for the time before the dog ban of 1994. We do have records for administrative actions connected to human safety and pet con- fl icts before and aft er the dog ban of 1994. For eight years before the ban, they aver- aged only four per year, and then seven years aft er the dog ban these complaints increased to 27 per year — nearly a sev- en-fold increase. Oregon does have a legislatively autho- rized agent program wherein highly vet- ted houndsmen are permitted to lethally remove cats to reduce human confl ict and bolster deer and elk survival. Th ese agents work closely with ODFW district biol- ogists. Even with this program in place, cougars are steadily increasing in Oregon, where hunting them is very impractical without the aid of dogs. At present, the law authorizing the use of agents is up for renewal, and hopefully it will receive legislative support and then be applied more broadly for both reaching zone harvest quotas and to help curb the upward statewide population trajectory. Election-related letters must address pertinent or timely issues of interest to our readers at-large. Letters must 1) Not be a part of letter-writing campaigns on behalf of (or by) candidates; 2) Ensure any information about a candidate is accurate, fair and not from second-hand knowledge or hearsay; and 3) explain the reasons to support candidates based on personal experience and perspective rather than partisanship and campaign-style rhetoric. Candidates themselves may not use the letters to the editor column to outline their views and platforms or to ask for votes; this constitutes paid political advertising. As with all letters and advertising content, the newspaper, at the sole discretion of the publisher, general manager and editor, reserves the right to reject any letter that doesn’t follow the above criteria. Send letters to: nhickson@cgsentinel.com or cmay@cgsentinel.com HOW TO CONTACT YOUR REPS Oregon state representatives Oregon federal representatives • Sen. Floyd Prozanski District 4 State Senator PO Box 11511 Eugene, Ore. 97440 Phone: 541-342-2447 Email : sen.fl oydprozanski@ state.or.us • Rep. Cedric Hayden Republican District 7 State Representative 900 Court St. NE Salem, Ore. 97301 Phone: 503-986-1407 Website: www.leg.state.or. us/hayden Email: rep.cedrichayden@ state.or.us • Rep. Peter DeFazio (House of Representatives) 405 East 8th Ave. #2030 Eugene, Ore. 97401 Email: defazio.house.gov/ contact/email-peter Phone: 541-465-6732 • Sen. Ron Wyden 405 East 8th Ave., Suite 2020 Eugene, Ore. 97401 Email: wyden.senate.gov Phone: (541) 431-0229 • Sen. Jeff Merkley Email: merkley.senate.gov Phone: 541-465-6750 C ottage G rove S entinel (541) 942-3325 Jim Akenson is a wildlife biologist, book author and Conservation Director for the Oregon Hunters Association (oregonhunt- ers.org). He invested much of his career in researching the Northwest’s predators. Administration Jenna Bartlett, Group Publisher Gary Manly, General Manager ..................................................... Ext. 1207 gmanly@cgsentinel.com Allison Miller, Multi-Media Sales Consultants .......................... Ext. 1213 amiller@cgsentinel.com Gerald Santana, Multi-Media Sales Consultants ....................... Ext. 1216 gsantana@cgsentinel.com Gina Nauman, Inside Multi-Media Sales Consultants .............. Ext. 1203 gnauman@cgsentinel.com Editorial Ned Hickson, Managing Editor...............................................541-902-3520 nhickson@cgsentinel.com Damien Sherwood, Staff Reporter. .............................................. 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