Another elk/deer slayer taken out

[Azlongears]

Native American's didn't kill herd animals?

[ultramag]

population control specialist ="josh epperson" good job buddy.

[Becker]

I tend to agree with littlebear....Any of you read Aldo Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac", the section "Thinking like a mountain" and past accounts of wolf populations. They thought killing all the wolves meant more deer etc. But the results were terrible. A few deer killed by a lion can be replaced in a few years, but letting the heards get out of control and run down the moutains, might not recover for lifetimes, if it does at all. I would rather have lions and chances at shooting them every now and then, find a couple racks, chase the deer that survive, rather than never have an opportunity to chase either.

 

My .02

[COOSEFAN]

Let me guess, if we didnt control them, "Those evil lions would eat every last deer/elk out there!!!!"

 

Right, they'd just eat themselves straight into extinction. Funny, you'd think that the of thousands of years they were around before we started "CONTROLLING" them they would have done that already?????

 

Just my .02

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

They need to be controlled just like the deer and elk. Checks and balances. We have already disturbed the natural order of things so it will never be like it was thousands of years or even 20 years ago. Any given area can only support so many cats just like it can support only so many deer and/or elk. Every critter out there has its purpose and it would be a tragedy to wipe out the lions! I don't know a single person who hates lions or wants to eradicate them. JIM

[bullwidgeon]

Even as good as that pansy Josh and his dad are at catching lions I am sure they are not going to eradicate all the cats from the areas they hunt. I have hunted in states without lions and it sucks to know you aren't going to have one come trotting out of nowhere when your out hunting. Lions add a little bit of "wild" to the entire experience for me.

 

Bret M.

[DesertBull]

I'll get me a cat one day.

 

Congrats!

[Rembrant]

The thought of letting nature take it's course and working on its own, like what you are talking about with the lions littlebear, won't work anymore.

We've got our hands way too deep into the cookie jar.

We are the supreme predators now. We control the wildlife populations. Because of our control, if there were no lions, the deer and elk populations will not overgraze or fall to disease due to overpopulation.

But we aren't gonna kill all the lions. We love lions. They taste good too! Lion hunting is an awesome sport and a good business for a few folks like the Eppersons.

Lions [/i]do compete with us for the deer and elk. They lean real hard on the deer.

Multiple use is where we are today. We share the land and the resources for wildlife/hunting, ranching, mining, timber, recreation, and more. And we make it work - for us. Take the word, "pristine" and wipe it out of your vocabulary. There isn't a place on this planet that hasn't been touched by us and our burning of fossil fuels. God told Adam in Genisis to "Go forth, multiply, and subdue the world". Have you looked around lately? Looks like we took what God said and got 'er done! Your idea of letting the lions manage the deer and elk populations, naturally, is a thing of the past, and today, a complete fairy tale.

What are they teaching you at the U of A?

Mike

[Azlongears]

Well they aren't teaching us anything out of the Bible, that's for sure.

 

And I never said anything about "letting the lions manage our deer populations," of course we need to manage the excess of all the game species, lions included. That is the importance of hunting.

 

All I was making a point at was that some folks look at lions as having no right out there. It's funny how us humans can put one animal so high in our values and disregard the next. And believe me, second to Josh and his dad, I would like to know somone on here that hunts lions as hard as I do. AK

[Becker]

Me littlebear me.....

[hunter4life]

I have found that alot of deer hunters are what I would call lion haters. They blame the lions for the numbers of deer being lower than they think they should be, and thus think that we should try to eradicate all the lions. Really a whole bunch of different things affect the deer like range conditions, drought, water availability, new subdivisions, hunting pressure, and predators. Lions have a bit of an effect on deer numbers, but I think it would be a great loss to eradicate the lions in exchange for more deer. Like bullwidgeon said, they add a bit of "wild" to the hunting experience. Although with that being said, I encourage people to get out and hunt lions because it is alot of fun to see one and killing the few that people glass up or catch with dogs on the dirt are not really going to hurt the lion population.

 

My congratulations go out to Josh and his dad on their success in catching lions this year. They must really put in the hard work to have caught 8 this winter.

[.270]

you ever hear of the "strip"? that fabled place north o' the grand canyon where the huge muleys grew. you guys ever hear of it? in the early 80's the lion population got so outta whack that they didn't even have a deer season for a couple years and the lions were actually starving to death. it hasn't even started to recover. might not ever get back to where it was. that's the fact jack. the azgfd sat around on their fat butts and watched it happen too. wouldn't listen to their own bioligists. and they really didn't care until the lions started dieing. deer didn't seem to matter much to em. california has the same problem is a lotta areas. that's why lions eat so many pets and people out there. once the west got civilized, game has to be "managed". no way around it. and there are way too many lions everywhere in this state. Lark.

[az4life]

I wouldn't worry bout the lion poulations too much since AZGFD manages them with the same expertise they do the Elk and Deer heards.

[DEERSLAM]

Here's my .02. I live in CA., no jokes please, and I can say with my experience out here is that lions need to be controlled or you're going to run into some major problems. Even if you hunt them hard you ain't going to kill em all.

[az4life]

sdrhunterdo

My comment about AGFD game management "expertise" was not intended as complimentary.

Seriously, Buying lion tags over the counter does not mean lion hunting is not managed. They manage the lion populations by requiring hunters to report all lions killed and when the harvest goal is reached, (ha ha) in a particular unit, they close that unit for further lion hunting for the duration of the season.

 

Lion hunting is something that probably has a .01% (1 in 10,000) success rate to those who buy tags and those who actually go hunting lions are probably less than 1% success too (1 in 100). Every game animal needs a check to stay in relative balance as others have stated.

 

Josh's lion hunting success shows he and his dad are 2 in a million. They show real expertise!

Josh, Keep those lion stories and pictures coming.

Growl... Snarl, Hiss, Growl....

[GRONG]

Hey guys thanks for the comments that is really nice, I'll pass it on to Dad too.

 

I'm gonna throw a few thoughts into the mix here that maybe nobody has considered, take it for whatever you want, in no way am I saying that this is the way and I am an expert on the subject.

 

People always talk about "too many lions" when in fact they don't have much to back that up by. I feel all they are doing is repeating what they hear others say out of pure ignorance. Dad and I are in the woods probably 5 days/week hunting lions in some way or another and we don't seem to find all of these dead deer and elk that people talk about and we are going where lions walk, which is usually the nasties places you see out in the field. Maybe we're just to dumb to see all the kills laying everywhere but we can sure find a track in the dirt. A lot of people don't realize how many other animals lions kill. It's rare for us to catch a lion that doesn't stink like a skunk. I feel that lions are opportunistic and eat what's easiest to them. Sure there's been stories of lions that have killed a few deer in a small area "just because", maybe that's just their instinct. They eat a lot of javalina and coyotes as well as domestic dogs and cats.

 

I also feel that this idea of "too many lions" is also related to how many people are in the field with top of the line binoculars. Think about it.... guys now sit behind binos and spotting scopes mounted to tripods for hours on end and they see just about everything that moves out there. 20 years ago that wasn't happening. Dozens and dozens of hunters each year glass up lions out there and they think that if they're seeing one then there must be 20 they aren't. Lions are crafty animals by nature and most people don't realize how much land they might call their home turf. Honestly Dad and I didn't realize how far a lion travels until a guy doing a lion study told us. The new collars put on lions have a GPS deal in them and it updates the coordinates every 7 hours. What they're finding on the few they've collared, with this new system of tracking an animal, is that they cover an ungodly amount of country. It's nothing for a lion to travel from the south rim of the Grand Canyon and end up on the Peaks above Flagstaff in 2-3 days and back again for whatever reason a couple days later. One particular female lion caught and collared on Deadman Mesa in 22 recently was tracked from there down and across the Verde River a couple times, up into the Pine Mountain Wilderness, back down to the river and eventually travelling as far north as Cottonwood. Freakin crazy!! As a lion hunter we hate to hear that kind of stuff when we think we're finally figuring out a particular lion's habbits. Anyway, kind of what I'm getting at here is that if you find a track in the bottom of a wash somewhere and say again the next day 10 miles away walking a road and then again find more tracks going up the bottom of a canyon, it doesn't mean that the hills are alive with lions, it could be the same lion making tracks all over the place. Dad and I have been trying to catch a certain tom since November and he just keeps giving us the slip. The first time we tried catching him we actually got lucky and did but didn't have a hunter with us.... dang! In making circle after circle and watching the roads for tracks and covering up to 30-50sq miles we've only drummed up one other lion and it's a female. To someone that didn't know much about lions, one might think that all the tracks we've found in that area are that of several lions but infact we're pretty darn sure there's only two of them and I got pictures of both of them on my trail camera.

 

Also, with the lion survey that is taking place right now they're trying to determine just how many lions are getting killed after a snow, which is when 99% of all lion hunters, that have dogs, hit the woods. From what little I understand about the study is that it is by the order of our wonderful Governor and if they find out that a majority of the lions killed are done so when it snows they are going to limit the amount of lions harvested. Therefore all the "too many lions" believers will now be enraged that us hound hunters can't do enough to "manage" the populations of lions in this state. Don't quote me on this, maybe my Dad can throw what he knows about it into the discussion here.

 

Anyway, I've typed WAY too much and I'm tired now, gotta git up early and go hunting. Hope I've made a few of you think and maybe it'll get some of you off the lion hating bandwagon. If not then oh well.... I'll keep posting pics of our successes if we are. Glad most of you have enjoyed the stories and pictures so far and hopefully we can bring you many more.