Sometimes it’s best to let nature do its thing.
Last week, Drs. Mark Elbroch and Howard Quigley announced a “provocative” new paper (Elbroch, 2019). In it, they concluded that high levels of mountain lion (Puma concolor) hunting might harm mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) populations in the American west.
This finding might seem counterintuitive, but it’s based on years of hard science.
Elbroch and Quigley, both of whom work for the wild cat conservation organization Panthera, recently completed a 4 and-a-half-year study called the Teton Cougar Project. During that time, Elbroch, Quigley, and a host of other researchers gathered obscene amounts of data on what mountain lions (AKA “pumas”) were eating near Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
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Becoming is Superior to Being 
I heard the kind of thing about wolves. They are beneficial to the herbivores by culling out the weaker and sickly individuals.
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Quite interesting. It does change our usual perception – from a purely human point of view – of carnivores, doesn’t it?
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Good post. We will never learn: nature rarely needs managing!
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