Wildlife Services' deadly force brings environmental problems
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Tom Knudson The Sacramento Bee
But Wildlife Services continues to kill nonselectively in many places, including the Granite Mountains north of Reno where the goal is protecting a big-game species – mule deer – and is funded by a predator control fee assessed on hunters.
Stark, majestic and isolated, the Granites loom like an island over the desert terrain. But that beauty is deceiving because the range is a place of rough justice for predators, internal Wildlife Services records show.
After slicing open a mountain lion killed in a federal neck snare in 2008, one agency hunter filled out a handwritten report: "Stomach contained deer hair and bone fragments," he noted. Eleven days later, he cut open another lion with different results: "He had nothing in his stomach."
In some cases, animals had rotted away by the time the agency hunter found them. "Only the skull was saved due to decay. … Pelt not saved due to decay/slippage. … Decomposition did not allow for accurate weight estimate," he wrote in a series of reports about mountain lions.
In 2009, the hunter found two lions dead in snares close to each other, "most likely" a mother and daughter, he wrote. Coyotes were targeted routinely, including four pups killed in their den in May 2011.
Has the killing been worth it? That is what scientists have asked as they've flown over the Granites, comparing the size and growth of deer herds where predators were killed with places where they were not.
The scientists have packaged their data and findings into reports and presentations filled with biological jargon and complex statistical analysis. But in plain English, it hasn't worked.
"There was no discernible difference," said Tony Wasley, a mule-deer biologist with the Nevada Department of Wildlife. "There were several different (population) variables we tested, and none were significantly different than adjacent areas with no predator control."
Two other factors generally have bigger impacts: harsh weather and poor forage conditions. When there is not enough to eat, saving a deer from predation may only delay death by starvation later.
"The simplicity of predator control has broad appeal," Wasley said. "The complexity of the problem is far greater."
A recent study in "Wildlife Monographs," a scientific journal published by the Wildlife Society, reported that most years, coyotes don't prey on deer at all. They're busy eating mice and rabbits. And even when a coyote does kill a mule deer, it generally doesn't have an impact.
"There is a contingent of mule deer that are going to die every year anyway. Often those are the first ones coyotes prey on," said Mark Hurley, a mule-deer biologist with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game and author of the study.
"The silver bullet isn't to run out there and kill all the coyotes or all the lions and boom – you get all the deer back," said Ken Mayer, director of the Nevada Department of Wildlife. "It's way, way more complicated than that."
On occasion, Wasley has presented his findings to Wildlife Services managers in Reno. "I've been told my analysis is a morale breaker, that they don't like me because I'm doing objective analysis," he said.
"The director told me he's got a tough time keeping his guys' spirits up when they read what they're doing has yet to demonstrate any measurable benefit," Wasley said.
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Eric,
More arguments against your logic.
Just kidding!
it blows being out elk hunting in Colorado in a unit/season that you do not have a deer tag for and seeing a whopper buck. 
