HB 1004 on Mountain Lions: Shoot 'Em and Stuff 'Em!

The Game Fish and Parks Agency Review Committee gets the early bird prize: they have filed the first five House bills for the 2009 session of the South Dakota Legislature. One measure sure to warm the cockles of PP's anti-feline heart: HB 1004, a measure to provide for the killing and dispostion of mountain lions. HB 1004 says if a mountain lion threatens you, any other person, or your livestock or pets, you can shoot it, no questions asked. You can also then keep the dead cat, stuff and mount it over your fireplace. No selling, trading, or bartering lion parts, though!

Mountain Lion Advice: Get Big!

"[T]he lions are actually more scared of us than we are of them."

PP may not believe it, but that's the advice from our trusty GF&P. KELO's Karla Ramaekers talks to GF&P's John Kanta for some advice on what to do if you meet a mountain lion in the woods. Basically, get big like bear. Stand tall, face the critter, shout at it, do all you can to look and sound like the toughest hombre in the forest (or slough, or Badlands, or—heavens forfend!—backyard). And if it comes at you, fight like heck!

GF&P has more mountain lion advice here. You can even learn mountain lion language—go figure!

Get big—that was the strategy my hiking buddies and I always followed. Unfortunately, we always ran into buffalo, not mountain lions. And trying to act big around buffalo is just silly. If you meet buffalo in the wild, act like deer, not bear: don't act threatening, just move along, and be small. More easily said than done when you're wearing a giant frame pack and hiking with guys who are 6'4"....

GF&P Proposes One-Lion Limit...

...mountain lions consider traveling in pairs...

KELO shares an AP report that South Dakota Game Fish & Parks is proposing new mountain lion regulations. Good idea: pass enough regulations, and the mountain lions will think this is Minnesota and move somewhere freer, like Montana. ;-)

No, no, the new regulations would be on shooting mountain lions. Landowners would have to get a special license, but they would then be permitted to shoot mountain lions on their property any time during the year.

Well, one mountain lion. GF&P only wants to let you kill one lion. I suppose if you bag one lion, word will get out in the lion 'hood that you're one bad dude, not to be messed with.

The report doesn't make clear whether that's one lion per property or one lion per person on the property. So if our friend PP gets nervous about the big cats, maybe he can get a license for everyone in the family (that would be a lot of dead cats!).

At peril of sounding like I'm playing the testosterone card that I have elsewhere decried, let me declare now my intention to violate South Dakota law. Regardless of the regulations GF&P proposes, if I see mountain lions on my property and I have weaponry handy, I will shoot first (and shoot often), and call Conservation Officer Brandon Gust later.