Pacific Rainforest Wildlife Guardians

Stop Oregon Mountain Lion Extermination

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is exterminating Oregon's Mountain Lions. Their Cougar Management Plan allows hunting, trapping and shooting close to 2,500 Cougars in addition to regular hunting. This aggressive plan allows hunting 10 months out of the year and has resulted in people nearly being killed.  Never satisfied with their brutality, ODFW is pushing a bill through the legislature to let counties decide to allow hound hunting after the people of Oregon voted twice to ban hound hunting. It already passed the house. Please tell your state senators to vote NO on SB 474.

  These majestic cats are very shy and stay away from humans as far as possible. Many live near rural communities and are never seen. They may kill deer for food among calves and goats without the farmer ever knowing. They, along with their prey, are forced down to rivers during drought, when clear-cut logged water sources dry up and grasses turn brown. This seasonal migration is a false population indicator.

   ODF&W's "science" is completely inadequate, contradicting proven experience real scientists and experience.  Like Alaska's Wolf extermination, Oregon Legislators and ODF&W are bribed by Safari Club campaign contributions, sending Cougars on the same path to extinction as our Wolves.

  Please call Governor Kitzhaber at 503-378-4582 and e-mail him at this link, and tell him he must stop the wholesale slaughter of our Cougars immediately.  Be politely forceful and say it's an emergency that he veto any bill to allow hound hunting. "Hunting" with hounds is neither hunting or a sport. While you're there, ask him to also veto SB 583 that would deny wolves endangered species protection, which is illegal.

   Oregon Fish and Wildlife is bating and trapping Cougars, then shooting them.  It is illegal to kill a mother Cougar.  Bating and trapping them is illegal, too. They say if they kill a mother, they will find the kittens and kill them, too.  Mother Cougars hide their kittens well.  They could be far away. Don't let your Cougar kittens starve to death without their moms. Our wildlife deserve better than this!

Please ask Governor Kitzhaber to stop the massive slaughter of Oregon's proud Mountain Lions using dogs, bate or traps. Indiscriminate bating of predators by ranchers who do nothing to protect their herds, like using herd dogs, shepherds or special fencing, must be fined to pay expenses of conflict management.  Education and regulation of human activities are the solutions, not extermination. Tell him the season must be shortened, too, so human lives aren't threatened in summer by crazed "lion hunters".

  You can email the Governor through this link to ask the Governor to veto SB 474 for hound hunting Cougars and SB 583 for delisting Wolves:

                                                                   Governor Kitzhaber            

                                                                                    160 State Capitol                                                 

                                                                                    900 Court Street                                                     

                                                                                    Salem, Oregon, 97301-4047                             

                                                                                    Phone: 503-378-4582