The Utah Wildlife Board’s recent decision to ban trail cameras for hunting purposes was an exciting development that protects standards of fair chase in hunting. The board even wants to explore limiting other technologies that help hunters find and kill wildlife. However, while the board’s decision will provide some protection for most of Utah’s hunted wildlife, the outcome of the meeting for mountain lions was not as praiseworthy.
First, the original proposed timeframe of the seasonal trail camera ban was shortened by a month, in part to give more opportunity to mountain lion hunters who use trail cameras to locate the big cats. “Give the cougar hunters the month of January,” said Randy Dearth, vice chair of the Wildlife Board, during the meeting (1:07:03). This change was not surprising given the DWR’s recent move, which is backed by the Legislature, to allow unlimited lion hunting in over half of Utah’s hunting units. The claim is that this unlimited lion hunting will increase huntable deer populations, despite evidence that poor habitat quality and climate change are major factors limiting deer.
Second, in line with this sentiment against cougars, the board also voted to remove some limitations on killing cougars that have GPS collars around their necks for research purposes. In 2021, the board prohibited killing these collared cougars to help ensure quality data collection for active cougar studies. Now, hunters can kill collared cougars as long as they are in a hunting unit that does not have an active study, despite concerns that collared cougars from active study areas will travel and disperse into areas without an active study.
The onslaught on Utah’s cougars continues. To learn more about issues facing the state’s cougars, visit https://mountainlion.org/us/utah/
Logan Christian, Salt Lake City