https://biologicaldiversity.or...Mzc1OS4xNzAyODQyOTI2



For Immediate Release, December 18, 2023

Contact:

Collette Adkins, (651) 955-3821, cadkins@biologicaldiversity.org

Washington Commission OK’s Hunting Reforms for Cougars, Bears

OLYMPIA, Wash.— The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission has voted 7-2 to approve a petition to protect cougars and bears through amended state hunting rules. As a result of the Friday evening vote, the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department will open rulemaking with the goal of avoiding overexploitation and population declines and better aligning policy with agency science.

“I’m so relieved to see the commission side with the science and act for cougars and bears,” said Collette Adkins, carnivore conservation program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We pushed for these reforms to save Washington’s bears and cougars from overexploitation by hunters, who have been killing these ecologically important carnivores at rates far above the levels recommended by state wildlife biologists.”

The now-approved rulemaking petition asked state wildlife managers to reverse the commission’s 2019 and 2020 expansions of cougar and bear hunting. Those expansions resulted in a 50% increase in the number of bears killed each year and kept cougar mortality above levels recommended by agency scientists.

Among other things, the petition asked state wildlife managers to immediately close cougar hunting upon reaching area-specific quotas and institute a statewide “bag limit” of one bear per hunter.

Dozens of top carnivore experts submitted a letter in advance of the commission’s vote that warned of the risks of population declines from overexploitation of Washington’s bears and cougars.

The petition was filed in October by Washington Wildlife First, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Humane Society of the United States, the Mountain Lion Foundation, WildFutures, Predator Defense, Coexisting with Cougars in Klickitat County and Kettle Range Conservation Group.

The wildlife advocacy groups will push for amended hunting rules to be finalized in advance of next year’s bear and cougar hunting seasons.

More anti hunting BS.