LAST EDITED ON Feb-05-15 AT 04:16PM (MST)[p]can'tkill, your right on, with one exception.
We no longer need to prove or disprove the need to reduce predation on mule deer units. We know it helps and we know it helps more on some units than it may on others. What needs to be done is to "get after it", hire the specialists, fund the cost and get the deer eaters removed and keep them removed, until we have a monster sized mule deer herd again, then we can afford to do a new experiment: That being, how many predators can you allow back on the unit before they adversely impact the deer population, when the herd is at unit carrying capacity.
My belief is we can have a lot more predators, if we want the damn things, if we have a lot more deer on the unit. Let's try that experiment for the next 40 years.
Push, push, push, the UDWR, the Legislature, the County Commissioners, the US Dept. of Agriculture, hunters, and mountain cabin owner associations to fund and kill predators.
They'll do it, if you push collectively in your areas. Do it now! Don't wait for someone else to do it, you do it. Gather your sportsmen, pound the RACS, over flow the Wildlife Board Meetings, tell them you want them to reallocate budgets, hire the professionals, build a forty year predator removal and maintenance plan.
Get your local Mule Deer Foundation, local Rocky Elk Foundation, local Turkey Foundation, local Ducks Unlimited, local NRA, local SCI, local Senator, local House Representative, all together. Don't wait on the National organizations, use the power of the local organization members. Get 5 from each group on board, go arm and arm to the RACs and Wildlife Board Meeting, 50 guys, one at a time, go to the micro-phone and ask for "more funding and more professional removal of coyotes, cougars and bears. You'll get it, you will. They will respond to united sportsmen, with a large and united representation.
It's the only way you'll see it happen, but it will, if you organize and unit your community. You can! Try it, you'll be amazed.
Focus your effort on uniting the active MDF, RMEF, SFW, WTF, SCI, NRA etc. banquet committee members, they are they "doers" in your area. They get things done and they aren't afraid to speak out. Use them, unit them in a common cause. These are the passionate people in your neighborhoods, they'll unit and they'll work together, if you call them together and build a plan together.
Do it. It's worth it.
DC
Did I mention: "We don't need anymore predator studies, we need fewer predators".