LWFC approves NOI for hunting regs, hunting seasons and WMA rules for 2025-26
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LWFC approves NOI for hunting regs, hunting seasons and WMA rules for 2025-26
‘We cannot legislate morals:’ Colorado Parks and Wildlife stands firm on mountain lion hunting, despite pleas from wildlife advocates
The commission voted to reduce the cap on lion hunting in line with its management plan on Thursday
News | Jan 10, 2025
Ali Longwell
Blood Origins/Courtesy Photo
Despite persistent calls from wildlife advocates to alter its practices around mountain lion hunting, Colorado Parks and Wildlife is staying the course.
On Thursday, the agency’s commission followed the staff recommendation and approved a 9.6% reduction in the number of lions that can be hunted for the 2025-2026 season, but made no other changes.
The reduction will allow for up to 610 lions to be hunted in the next season, down from 674 during the season currently underway.
The reduction was recommended due to one of two new thresholds put in place by Parks and Wildlife’s updated mountain lion management plans for the west and east regions of Colorado. These plans were passed in 2021 and 2024 and added caps to the number of adult female mountain lions that could be hunted as well as on the number of human-caused lion deaths not related to hunting. The goal of the caps is to maintain a stable population of mountain lions, according to the agency.
In the most recent season, the number of adult females hunted exceeded the 22% limit, hitting 24%, in the western hunting region.
Colorado offers mountain lion hunting during a nearly five-month period from November to March. Since 2014, the agency has been able to extend the season through April if the number of lions killed falls short of its cap.
The state offers an unlimited number of licenses for hunting mountain lions but requires that purchasers complete a specific education course before purchase. All lions killed are required to undergo a Parks and Wildlife inspection, which enables the agency to collect data on the lion’s sex, age and location.
This data is reported daily on the Parks and Wildlife website throughout the season so hunters can track the number of lions hunted in certain areas including the number of females who have been killed — and what the limits are in that area.
In recent years, the agency has sold around 2,500 licenses annually, with only about 20% successfully harvesting a mountain lion, according to information presented by Mark Vieira, the carnivore and furbearer program manager for Parks and Wildlife, at Thursday’s meeting.
Vieira said the caps on the number of lions hunted and requirements make the species “among the most tightly regulated of the state’s big-game species.”
In the last full hunting season, from 2023-2024, 500 lions — 265 male lions and 235 females (both adult and sub-adult) — were killed across the state, slightly above the three-year annual average of 491. In the current hunting season, which began in mid-November, 189 lions had been killed, 64 of which were females.
Do ethics have a place in policy?
This was the commission’s first annual review of hunting permits since voters rejected Proposition 127 in November with nearly 55% of the vote. If passed, the measure would have banned hunting mountain lions, bobcats and lynx.
At the commission’s Wednesday and Thursday meetings, dozens of public commenters reiterated the concerns brought forth by the ballot measure. In addition to opposing hunting as a wildlife management tool, ethical concerns were raised over the use of hounds — which account for over 90% of lion hunting in Colorado — and the permitted hunting of female mountain lions.
“This is not a sustainable management practice,” said Valerie Hunter-Goss, a Fort Collins resident. “The tradition of hounding is reckless and threatens mountain lion populations. Removing key females from their communities wreaks havoc on the species balance. We ask for more accountability and ethical hunting practices like fair chase in managing mountain lions.”
The number of female lions — both adult and young — hunted spiked in the 2023-2024 season, accounting for 47% of the total harvest. In the prior five years, it had been between 39% to 41%.
Vieira hypothesized that the ballot measure was behind the spike.
“The only explanation I have is that last winter, when faced with the possibility of a ban on lion hunting via Proposition 127, a small but measurable portion of hunters made a different selective decision than ever before and opted to harvest the female causing this 2023 adult female harvest proportion increase,” he said.
Per its new plans, Parks and Wildlife tracks — and limits — the number of adult females that can be hunted, but places no limits on sub-adult cats. This is because adult female mountain lions are the “biological engine of the population,” Vieira said.
“Those adult females are out there producing kittens, propelling the population forward, and we want to protect those,” he said. “It’s not that sub-adult male lions or sub-adult female lions are not necessarily important … and we have the data to suggest that they’re very much out there in abundance in Colorado sub-adults, but we want to protect those females.”
It is also illegal to kill mountain lion kittens — defined as those with spots — or females with kittens.
The use of hounds to selectively hunt mountain lions, the winter-only season — which allows identifying kitten tracks in the snow — the education course and new thresholds all help protect adult female lions in Colorado, Vieira noted.
Some of the houndsmen and hunters that spoke on Thursday reiterated this and spoke against some of the claims made about them. Kody Lostroh, vice president of the United Houndsmen of Colorado, said they were behind the reduction in quota and other thresholds.
“It lines up with the science, and that’s what we want,” Lostroh said. “There’s nothing in us that wants these things eliminated. We love mountain lions … We want (management) to line up the best way possible for the populations and for the opportunity for us as well.”
While the commission and staff discussed some of the concerns raised by the public, it unanimously passed the regulations with no changes beyond the staff’s recommendation.
Dallas May, the commission’s chair, backed the agency’s current management system and enforcement.
“We cannot legislate morals and ethics,” May said. “We have a system in place, the education course that a hunter is required to carry that certificate of completion with them. And yes, we have had instances of people violating that or having illegal take, but the fact of the matter is we have a system in place that punishes that and we enforce it.”
Commissioner Jay Tutchton added that in rejecting Proposition 127, voters showed support for the agency’s current mountain lion management, which he called “advanced and sustainable and as scientifically based as any other state.”
“A key part of democracy is that we accept the results … I think we’re struggling with that a little, but the public has spoken on both wolves and lions, and we have to accept both,” Tutchton said. “There’s some thorny ethical issues that people are in different places on and they view the world differently … but the commonality, for me, is that everyone wants those animals on the landscape and our job as (Parks and Wildlife) is to ensure that those animals remain on the landscape for future generations, whether they want to watch them or hunt them.”
Two lynx captured after being illegally released in Scottish Highlands
The wild cats were humanely trapped using cameras near baited traps and are in quarantine
Libby Brooks Scotland correspondentThu 9 Jan 2025 05.21 ESTShare
Two lynx that were illegally released into the Scottish Highlands have been captured overnight and are said to be in good health.
Police had issued a warning to the public on Wednesday evening not to approach the wild cats, after several sightings in the Drumguish area, near Kingussie.
Working alongside Police Scotland, experts from the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) humanely trapped the wild cats and they are now being cared for in quarantine facilities at Highland Wildlife Park before being transferred to Edinburgh Zoo.
The wildlife conservation charity condemned the illegal release as “reckless” and “highly irresponsible”, as did other animal welfare groups, who warned that it was likely the pair would have died in the wild. There were calls for whoever was responsible to face “the full force of the law” at the Scottish parliament on Thursday.The video player is currently playing an ad.Skip Ad
Police said enquiries were continuing to establish the full circumstances on Thursday. While charities working towards the reintroduction of lynx to the Highlands have condemned the illegal release, there is speculation that someone who had grown frustrated with the slow progress of the campaign had taken matters into their own hands.
The fact that the usually shy and elusive animals were photographed in snowy woodland by a local resident suggests they were used to human interaction.https://interactive.guim.co.uk/uploader/embed/2025/01/lynx-map/giv-455971h8Q1JRpJwZ/
Eurasian lynx, which typically grow to the size of a labrador retriever and have thick grey-brown fur with black spots and a white belly, were once native to Britain but driven to extinction about 1,000 years ago.
David Barclay, the manager of the RZSS saving wildcats team, said: “We set live trail cameras near baited traps and it was a long night for our specialist keepers who were taking turns to monitor any activity.
“It was amazing to see the lynx being captured safely and humanely, which makes the lack of sleep more than worth it.
“Biosecurity laws mean the cats need to spend 30 days in suitable quarantine facilities, so we will transfer them from Highland Wildlife Park to Edinburgh zoo, where we will further assess their health and welfare. Long term, they may return to Highland Wildlife Park, which is near where they were trapped, though it is too early to say for certain.”
RZSS’s chief executive, David Field, condemned the illegal release “in the strongest possible terms”.
“It was a highly irresponsible act and it is very unlikely they would have survived in the wild due to a lack of adequate preparation. Their abandonment was reckless to the animals, public the community and nature.
“For now, we have named them ‘The KillieHuntly Two’ and thankfully they appear to be in good health.”
Highland Wildlife Park is already home to two grown northern lynx, a subspecies of the Eurasian lynx, named Switch and Neon.
The charity partnership Lynx to Scotland described the illegal release as “grossly irresponsible”.
Peter Cairns, the executive director of Scotland: The Big Picture, one of the charities involved, said: “We understand the frustration of all those who wish to see lynx restored to the Scottish landscape, but an illegal release is not the way to achieve that aim.”
The farmers’ body NFU Scotland, which opposes the reintroduction of lynx to the Cairngorms, had raised concerns overnight about the predators attacking livestock.
Adding to speculation about how and why the cats were released, one witness described encountering them near a layby, where straw bedding had been left for them.
Willie Anderson, deputy team leader of Cairngorm mountain rescue team, said he came within 60 yards of the pair.
“They had definitely been illegally released because they were 100 yards from a pile of straw bedding that contained dead chicks and, interestingly, porcupine quills – the bedding was peppered with porcupine quills,” he said.
“They were very tame and you could see they had been released from a nearby layby because there was the straw there too. They were only 100 yards from that spot and the road. I don’t think they would have survived in the wild.”
Anderson praised the speed at which experts at the Highland Wildlife Park had recaptured the animals.
“The park had traps they use for their Scottish wildcat reintroduction programme, so they left baited cages and incredibly they caught both. The cages also had cameras so staff could monitor them,” he said.
“To catch one lynx in a cage was great but two was really fantastic. I have done a few rescues in my time but this was one of the more unusual events that I have come across.”
The Highland Wildlife Park is familiar with winter escapades: last February an escaped Japanese macaque became a global sensation after he went on the run for four days, before being lured back by a yorkshire pudding.
Edward Mountain, MSP for the Highlands and Islands, raised the issue at first minister’s questions on Thursday, calling for the illegal release to be recognised as “a very serious wildlife crime”.
“The release of these lynx was not only reckless and ignorant, but also illegal,” he said.
“There is a reason why the reintroduction of species is carefully regulated, and those responsible must be caught and face the full force of the law.
“If these lynx were not caught, it is likely that they would have died. I am relieved that the animals are safe, but it is important that we recognise the significance of this serious wildlife crime”.
Earth records hottest year ever in 2024 and the jump was so big it breached a key threshold
The Associated PressFollow
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Story by SETH BORENSTEIN
• 14h • 5 min read
Earth recorded its hottest year ever in 2024, with such a big jump that the planet temporarily passed a major climate threshold, several weather monitoring agencies announced Friday.
Last year’s global average temperature easily passed 2023’s record heat and kept pushing even higher. It surpassed the long-term warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit ) since the late 1800s that was called for by the 2015 Paris climate pact, according to the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Service, the United Kingdom’s Meteorology Office and Japan’s weather agency.
Climate Earths Hottest Year© Petros Giannakouris
The European team calculated 1.6 degrees Celsius (2.89 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming. Japan found 1.57 degrees Celsius (2.83 degrees Fahrenheit) and the British 1.53 degrees Celsius (2.75 degrees Fahrenheit) in releases of data coordinated to early Friday morning European time.
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American monitoring teams — NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the private Berkeley Earth — were to release their figures later Friday but all will likely show record heat for 2024, European scientists said. The six groups compensate for data gaps in observations that go back to 1850 — in different ways, which is why numbers vary slightly.
Climate Earths Hottest Year© Matias Delacroix
“The primary reason for these record temperatures is the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere” from the burning of coal, oil and gas, said Samantha Burgess, strategic climate lead at Copernicus. “As greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere, temperatures continue to increase, including in the ocean, sea levels continue to rise, and glaciers and ice sheets continue to melt.”
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Last year eclipsed 2023’s temperature in the European database by an eighth of a degree Celsius (more than a fifth of a degree Fahrenheit). That’s an unusually large jump; until the last couple of super-hot years, global temperature records were exceeded only by hundredths of a degree, scientists said.
The last 10 years are the 10 hottest on record and are likely the hottest in 125,000 years, Burgess said.
July 10 was the hottest day recorded by humans, with the globe averaging 17.16 degrees Celsius (62.89 degrees Fahrenheit), Copernicus found.
By far the biggest contributor to record warming is the burning of fossil fuels, several scientists said. A temporary natural El Nino warming of the central Pacific added a small amount and an undersea volcanic eruption in 2022 ended up cooling the atmosphere because it put more reflecting particles in the atmosphere as well as water vapor, Burgess said.
Alarm bells are ringing
Climate Earths Hottest Year© Jae C. Hong
“This is a warning light going off on the Earth’s dashboard that immediate attention is needed,” said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd. ”Hurricane Helene, floods in Spain and the weather whiplash fueling wildfires in California are symptoms of this unfortunate climate gear shift. We still have a few gears to go.”
Climate Earths Hottest Year© Boris Grdanoski
“Climate-change-related alarm bells have been ringing almost constantly, which may be causing the public to become numb to the urgency, like police sirens in New York City,” Woodwell Climate Research Center scientist Jennifer Francis said. “In the case of the climate, though, the alarms are getting louder, and the emergencies are now way beyond just temperature.”
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There were 27 weather disasters in the United States that caused at least $1 billion in damage, just one fewer than the record set in 2023, according to NOAA. The U.S. cost of those disasters was $182.7 billion. Hurricane Helene was the costliest and deadliest of the year with at least 219 deaths and $79.6 billion in damage.
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“In the 1980s, Americans experienced one billion-plus weather and climate disaster on average every four months,” Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe said in an email about NOAA’s inflation-adjusted figures. “Now, there’s one every three weeks —and we already have the first of 2025 even though we’re only 9 days into the year.”
“The acceleration of global temperature increases means more damage to property and impacts on human health and the ecosystems we depend on,” said University of Arizona water scientist Kathy Jacobs.
World breaches major threshold
This is the first time any year passed the 1.5-degree threshold, except for a 2023 measurement by Berkeley Earth, which was originally funded by philanthropists who were skeptical of global warming.
Scientists were quick to point out that the 1.5 goal is for long-term warming, now defined as a 20-year average. Warming since pre-industrial times over the long term is now at 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit).
“The 1.5 degree C threshold isn’t just a number — it’s a red flag. Surpassing it even for a single year shows how perilously close we are to breaching the limits set by the Paris Agreement,” Northern Illinois University climate scientist Victor Gensini said in an email. A 2018 massive United Nations study found that keeping Earth’s temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius could save coral reefs from going extinct, keep massive ice sheet loss in Antarctica at bay and prevent many people’s death and suffering.
Francis called the threshold “dead in the water.”
Burgess called it extremely likely that Earth will overshoot the 1.5-degree threshold, but called the Paris Agreement “extraordinarily important international policy” that nations around the world should remain committed to.
More warming is likely
European and British calculations figure with a cooling La Nina instead of last year’s warming El Nino, 2025 is likely to be not quite as hot as 2024. They predict it will turn out to be the third-warmest. However, the first six days of January — despite frigid temperatures in the U.S. East — averaged slightly warmer and are the hottest start to a year yet, according to Copernicus data.
Scientists remain split on whether global warming is accelerating.
There’s not enough data to see an acceleration in atmospheric warming, but the heat content of the oceans seem to be not just rising but going up at a faster rate, said Carlo Buontempo, Copernicus’ director.
“We are facing a very new climate and new challenges — climate challenges that our society is not prepared for,” Buontempo said.
This is all like watching the end of “a dystopian sci-fi film,” said University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann. “We are now reaping what we’ve sown.”
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Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment
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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations.
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Farmington cat injured after getting caught by illegal trap
Jacqlin Aragon | KOB
January 8, 2025 – 4:35 PMPlay Video
Farmington cat injured after getting caught by illegal trap
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – New Mexico Game and Fish typically only see a couple cases a year involving illegal traps, but we’re a week into the new year, and they’re already seeing it.
“Most traps are all modified in order to meet our legal requirements on our best management practices. So trappers modify the traps after purchasing them to meet all of our legal requirements to make those best humane sailings best management practices,” said New Mexico Game and Fish Chief of Wildlife Stewart Wiley.
That wasn’t the case for a Farmington woman whose cat “Mida” was injured by one of the illegal traps.
“This was a pure illegal activity. I don’t know where. We don’t know where the trap was set, because the animal was not staked at that site. So it’s hard to say why that trap was even set to begin with, or what it was set for, but it was illegal in terms of how the trap was set. It’s hard to tell, too on this trap how long it was set, if it was there from long, long time ago, 10 years ago,” said Wiley.
Back in 2021, the Legislature passed a law stating trapping is only legal on private lands. But the state game commission also sets regulations on when, where and the types of trapping that are legal on private lands.
“The laws around the types of traps and how they have to be set were based on research from the Association of Fish and Wildlife agencies on best management practices on how traffic should occur to be the most humane possible,” Wiley said.
In Mida’s case, there wasn’t anything legal about the trap she was caught in.
“From my understanding, that trap didn’t have proper staking, didn’t have proper swivels, proper chain, anything, so that was all illegal. It wasn’t marked, it was not an offset. So the jaws weren’t offset, so it doesn’t create as much pinch or damage, or not laminated. All of that. None of those aspects of the trap were legal in terms of what our requirements are,” said Wiley.
Wiley says trapping season is usually from November to March, so they know when to anticipate these cases.
Wiley says to ensure safety, make sure you keep your pets on a leash, be cautious when walking near private land, and stay calm for your pet if they are caught in that situation.
More than 10,000 deer harvested in Missouri during alternative method hunting season
by Shea BaechleWed, January 8th 2025 at 10:58 AM
The Missouri Department of Conservation reported a total of 10,071 deer harvested during the alternative methods portion of firearms hunting season. (Photo – Christopher Olson)
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Over 10,000 deer were harvested during the alternative methods portion of firearms deer season.
The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) reported a total of 10,071 deer were harvested between Dec. 28 and Jan. 7.
The total breakdown of the deer hunted included:
- 2,765 antlered bucks
- 1,072 button bucks
- 6,234 does
Franklin County brought in the most harvests with 223 deer, followed by Pike County with 209 deer and Macon County was close behind with a total harvest of 207.
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However, this year’s total fell short compared to last year’s alternative methods total of 12,496.
The MDC noted that deer hunting season is still ongoing with archery season running up until Jan. 15.
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More information regarding harvest totals and deer hunting information can be found on the MDC website.
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