Female Lions

[CouesPursuit]

There has to be some wisdom out there that can enlighten me..

 

Males have bigger, actively defended home ranges, aka fewer lions eating game. With everything we know about females taking essentially any sized game they want, not to mention wolf numbers increasing, etc., why is so acceptable to let females walk?

 

I understand the business and passion from a lion hunter's point of view, but for those of us that don't chase lions with dogs, and would like to see more game in the field, it's like we praise these lion hunter's to leave breeding females to live.

 

Are we afraid of supressing lion numbers, are females not as cool, or ? Please, genuinely, I'm not trying to knock lion hunter's here, but why?

[desertmafia21]

You must have listened to the jay scott podcast....LOL!

[CouesPursuit]

Actually, I didn't, and now I feel like an idiot.. Can someone help with which podcast that one was? Thanks.

[GJMauro12]

He did a two part series with a lion hunter. It's the two newest episodes. Episodes 215 & 216

[CouesPursuit]

Whoops, thanks GJ. I'll try to enlighten myself first lol.

[Couzer]

My thoughts are that folks that want to let females walk are into it for the business side, personal choice, or like seeing lions out in the wild. For me if it's legal, I am going to shoot female or not.

[cactusjack]

my lion was killed on a coues hunt. She was 5 years old and weighed 90-100 lbs. She is a nice cat but not one of the beasts my cousin has killed. She was mighty tasty and made a nice rug. Id really like to shoot a big male, however I will fill another tag with a female given the opportunity.

 

She resides in my bedroom next to the 1950's navy spy glass I got from my granddad.

 

[oz31p]

Who lets female lions walk? I shoot lions that are not spotted kittens and are not with spotted kittens.

 

My compass is not tilted by guilds or podcasters.

[DesertBull]

.

[CouesPursuit]

Haven't listened to Jay Scott in a while and these episodes are great. Andy's knowledge is impressive. I respect his take on it 100% and glad I listened to that, didn't mean to be offensive with this post and wouldn't have posted it had I listened to that before.

[bonecollector777]

The reason most houndsman let them walk is because just like deer hunters want more deer, lion hunters want more lions. If a tom is killed a new Tom will quickly take his territory and breed the females. One female is gonna have atleast two or three kittens so lion numbers will increase rather quickly if people aren't killing females. I also believe lions get a bad rap that they are killing a deer a week so most hunters think they are gonna wipe out everything. I'm sure there are areas with too many lions that if left unchecked can devastate the deer population. But around here where most guys have let females go the last 10 years we haven't seen any noticeable effect on elk or deer populations. Sad part for those that like more deer and less lions there's not a whole lot they can do about getting rid of lions unless they get hounds. And then if they get hounds they will get the lion bug and want more lions haha. It's a vicious cycle.

[AZbowhntr]

As long as it is legal and I have a tag in my pocket I am going to take the first lion I see. I have had two opportunities in the past that did not work out. So as they say, third time's a charm. At least I hope so.

[bigorange]

Haven't listened to Jay Scott in a while and these episodes are great. Andy's knowledge is impressive. I respect his take on it 100% and glad I listened to that, didn't mean to be offensive with this post and wouldn't have posted it had I listened to that before.

Thought it was interesting that you posed the question the same day I had listened to that podcast. He does give a good angle on it and I'd never heard that before that they let females walk. I guess I assumed like anything else they were lookin for the biggest and that's usually the male.

[Flatlander]

As hunters, I think we should first be conservationists. Even Aldo Leopold said that it was a mistake to eradicate wolves and that when we did part of the mountain would die with them.

 

To say that every lion should be killed is ignorant and to believe that if it happened that our hills would suddenly become the garden of eden is also fallacy. Predators should be managed like every other big game animal.

 

So for guys who are good at killing lions and do so at close range where evidence of sex is apparent, it makes sense to me that they would let females walk. But for us opportunists looking through glass from long distance, that's not realistic.

 

The lions seem to be self sustaining pretty well so I would say the model works and good on the houndsmen who self police and don't routinely kill females.

[Zeke-BE]

I don't lion hunt, but keep a tag with me. If i ever came across one male or female im shooting it. Why??? Because i never see them and I haven't shot one yet. Maybe if I always shoot one every year ill look into that a little more.