The Path of Least Resistance

Former Insider Sheds Light on Wildlife Officials and Cougars 

On January 29, 2009 the Michigan Senate’s Agriculture and Bioeconomy Committee heard testimony that cougars are found in both peninsulas (see article below).  Several of the lawmakers questioned why our DNR is in denial, despite confirmation of cougars by the agency’s own staff.  Ten days later (February 8, 2009) the Arkansas Democrat Gazette ran an article “Arkansas sportsman: AGFC not lying just avoiding furball over big cats,” by Bryan Hendricks, that offered some insight.  Excerpts are printed here with permission.  

Many Arkansans believe, with good reason that mountain lions live in Arkansas, and they don’t understand why the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission won’t admit it.  

Perhaps I can explain.  Having served eight years with the game and fish agencies in Missouri and Oklahoma, both of which also suffer from Acute Mountain Lion Denial Syndrome, I was privy to discussions about this topic that the public will never hear.  Basically, agencies like the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission ignore or deny the presence of mountain lions to avoid huge political and bureaucratic headaches.  

….For years, the Missouri Department of Conservation denied the existence of wild mountain lions in Missouri until a car killed a wild cougar on U.S. 54 near Fulton, MO.  Then, the MDC’s response was: “Well, we had ONE wild mountain lion, but not anymore.”  

That is, until another got run over on I-70, near Kansas City.  Then it was: “Well, we had TWO, but not anymore.”  

I recently relived this experience with my old boss at the MDC, Dan Witter, one of the most capable, most competent and most honorable men I’ve ever known.  The Fulton cat lived on Witter’s property.  He’d seen its tracks and even found caches of deer it had killed.  This contradicted the MDC’s insistence that the cat was transient, on its way from somewhere else to somewhere else.  

Then, Witter threw out this nugget.  The late Dave Hamilton, head of the MDC’s mountain lion response team, told him that the cat was a young male displaced from Arkansas that had come north to establish its territory.  

One of my best friends at the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation was a fellow named Paul Balkenbush.  Back then, he was the ODWC’s streams biologist, but now he’s the southeast region fisheries supervisor.  Paul hunted a lot, and told me he’d seen mountain lions in the wilds of southeastern Oklahoma.  I trust a biologist knows a cougar from a bobcat.  

So, why don’t the AGFC admit we have mountain lions?  For the same reason the other states won’t.  If the AGFC acknowledges a sustainable population of wild mountain lions, it will be compelled to draft a management plan for mountain lions.  That means the agency will have to devote money and manpower to compile a population estimate, and then hold meetings to get public input for management options.  

By virtue of its conservation ethic, a management plan generally seeks to increase or maintain a stable population of the subject species.  Deer and turkey hunters wouldn’t like that, and livestock farmers wouldn’t tolerate it.  They’d raise Cain with the Legislature, they’d litigate, and they’d demand the AGFC pay them for the cattle, goats, and sheep they believe mountain lions killed….  

….Therefore, the AGFC avoids the hassle altogether by insisting there are no wild mountain lions in Arkansas.  It’s not a coverup.  It’s simply the path of least resistance.

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