Tim Smith

They do attack sometimes, especially children. You shouldn't let them go unsupervised into woods or be without an equalizer when they're around. I've been to that lodge and was actually thinking of visiting the Chisos Mountains this week. http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t3#/video/us/2012/02/07/dnt-mountain-lion-attack.kosa

My old representative in Illinois was a Republican and had the highest rated conservation voting record in the Illinois delegation...thus I voted for him (and only him because yes, the others in his party didn't measure up). Plenty of conservatives are good conservationists. They're just not usually the loud ones (although Dave Foreman of Earth First! is a Republican and I guess he would qualify as "loud".) ...and the larger point is that you should argue content without generalizing about groups of people. That's what gets the X.

If it's a test case, the Illinois Smallmouth Alliance has an annual grant fund (or did) with 2K grants for good causes. Normally those are research and restoration in Illinois but THIS is a good cause and I bet if you called and explained the case to those guys (refer them to these discussion and let them see the support you have) they would be likely to help you out. These same issues apply in Illinois, Indiana and across the Midwest and if you've got the stones to push the issue they would benefit hugely as well. You can access the granting application on the ISA web page. Deadline will be coming soon. I suggest you speak to Mike Clifford and Jim Jozwiak and any other officers you know there ahead of time and see how they might feel about your application. If they reject the idea because you're in Missouri you can tell them for me this is why we need a National Smallmouth Alliance....you can tell them that anyway because it's true. Be sure to let me know where to send my Benji.

Exactly. And that right is already available to citizens. This is not an endangered species or migratory animal. You'd think we're made out of cat food and gravy and living in kitty bowls the way people get bent out of shape over these animals.

Political yes, partisan, no.

Unfortunately, this is the nub of the matter. It's expensive to sample populations of low density animals in a scientific way. No one's going to put state funds into scouring the woods full time for mountain lions unless there's a compelling economic reason to do so. So they wave a little money at the issue and maintain a skeptical view...which as Ness indicates, is the proper scientific stance. It's probably a more compelling question what management steps are being taken. It seems there's a pretty solid wall of people out there ready to shoot the first thing that looks like a mountain lion....home range or not.

Those are in Fouke, Arkansas anyway, not Missouri. Maybe someone trapped it and moved it there?

I was at Roxborough today before the Broncos game and found 3 different sets of mountain lion tracks along the same trail where 8-10 year old kids were scrambling around and there were kid-sized snow angels all along the trail. The snow fell last night so all that happened this morning. Your neighbor's hysteria is vastly more dangerous than the cats.

...and also this quote from the southernfriedscience link might be of some use. Again, it's the large number of hybrids that have appeared that provide the evidence for something recent. ...although it's also probably worth mentioning that in sunfish, F1 hybrids can be fertile but the F2s show lower levels of effective fertility so it's not 100% sure that these hybrid sharks will persist. What they are likely to do is introduce the southern species genes into the blacktip population at large.

What you're thinking about is, I think, a "genetic clock" that tracks the accumulation of random mutations and assuming that occurs at a constant rate over time. I'm not sure these scientists would have done this analysis in this case, but it might be good to know. In this case there are now large numbers of hybrids where there were none (at a detectable level) there before. This occurred in conjunction with a range expansion allowed by changes in water temperature. It's probably possible that low level hybridization occurred in the past, but now it has taken hold and there's a definite intermediate form that is reproducing and constitues something "new". It's probably worth pointing out that this kind of thing is much more likely among fish which as a group regularly produce semi-fertile hybrids among closely related species.

JD, you're usually more informed and logical than this and the conspiracy theory is beneath you. Large predatory mammals have huge ranges and any biologist can tell you that you can stuff the state full of mountain lions and they're not going to make a dent in river otters (I hope you were joking about that). Mountain lions these days readily wander through marginal habitat and show up many hundreds of miles from their home ranges on a regular basis. That's a long established fact.

Terribly sorry that happened to your dog, wrench. Your neighbor owes you more than the bill and I hope he has more character when it comes time to pay than he did when a story about a boogie kitty made him take pot shots into his property. Had he even seen any tracks or did he have any notion a mountain lion was there? On the other hand, it's probably worth pointing out that free running dogs will eventually become prey for mountain lions when and if a population does establish.

The link you're thinking about probably exists in an earlier species. Neither of these species are the same as their ancestor and they've been changing over time based on local selection pressures and genetic drift. Apparently black bass like smallmouth and spotted and largemouth sometimes pass chunks of DNA back and forth to each other this way all the time. It could result in new bass species at some point in the future...or perhaps it already has.

From the AFS newsfeed: GOP leaders tell EPA to "start over" on Clean Water Act guidance The GOP leaders of congressional committees with jurisdiction on water issues have asked the EPA and Corps of Engineers to start over on their attempt to clarify the scope of the Clean Water Act. Reps. John Mica (chair of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure) and Bob Gibbs (chair of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment) join Sens. James Inhofe (ranking member, Committee on Environment and Public Works) and Jeff Sessions (ranking member, Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife) blasted the agencies' first attempt in a Nov 8 letter. In one breath, the members of Congress commend the agency for undertaking a rulemaking to address issues raised by the SWANCC and Rapanos decisions. In the very next, they urge the agencies to "formally [withdraw] the Draft Guidance and [begin] the rulemaking process with an open mind. Both the SWANCC and Rapanos cases raised questions as to the extent to which isolated wetlands and smaller tributaries are protected under the provisions of the Clean Water Act. The EPA and Corps released draft guidance in May of 2011, which garnered approximately 230,000 comments. The EPA website says the agency anticipates proposing a final rule in 2012. Background information on the CWA definition of "waters of the United States" can be found here: http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/guidance/wetlands/CWAwaters.cfm.

Yes, the media has done quite a bit of silliness on this story. It's a fish.

The media has rather botched this story and as usual doesn't seem able to accurately report about evolution, but it's an interesting example of range expansions due to differences in water temperature. Most of our sunfish and bass hybridize (most notoriously spotted bass and smallmouth). We can expect to see more and more of this over time. http://www.southernfriedscience.com/?p=12398

Exactly. Roxborough State Park was opened just outside Denver several decades ago with a hundred thousand + visitors a year. When I moved here I assumed it would be just another boring urban park and I could barely be bothered to visit it. But when I walked the trails it was clear this was not the case. On the trails, mixed among the stroller tracks and the footprints of groups of kids from local schools are bear and mountain lion tracks. I find them almost every time I visit and I visit often because not only is there the possibility (certainty) of seeing huge mule deer here, there is also the possibility of finding a mule deer kill, or perhaps spotting a moutain lion. I've seen bears twice, including once with my daughter. The visitors center has a tally of sightings and they're almost constant. And in all that time and among all those people there has been a total of one attack. It was against a 135 pound man who was jogging on a trail and panicked and ran when he encountered a mountain lion. Eventually he fought it off and he survived. And that's it. Millions of chances to attack a human and that's all that ever happened. Parks and stories like this are all over the west. Yes. You can get attacked by a mountain lion but you're at far more risk from your neighbor's dogs and far more risk than that from your own dogs. In fact, if your kids are going into the woods or out onto the streets without the capacity to deal with HUMAN predators you're already taking crazy risks. If your're prepared for that, you're in relatively good shape to handle mountain lions. Mountain lions don't add appreciably to the risk that's already there. Is it really a valid argument to try to eliminate all risk...especially from areas that are supposedly wilderness?

Good point.

If Missouri gets too rough for you, Hank, you're welcome to come walk with my and my daughter here any time. http://brooksmith.blogspot.com/2011/12/more-snow-tracking-at-roxborough-how.html Several million kids through there so far and they're all fine.

Wipers are sometimes stocked to control gizzard shad...although they don't actually accomplish that so I guess I have the same question. Also, why not harvest top predators that are outside their natural system and damaging native fisheries? Northern pike, smallmouth or muskie in a salmon stream? Yank 'em! I would argue that's a major oversight.

If any of you have an interest in keeping in close touch with fisheries science in the Ozarks, you might consider joining and attending the Arkansas Chapter of the American Fisheries Society (there's a Missouri Chapter too). This year's meeting is in Conway and it includes a technical meeting on Aligator Gar along with a wide variety of technical presentations. Highly recommended. From the AFS webfeed: 2012 Meeting of the Arkansas Chapter of the American Fisheries Society February 8-10, 2012 (Wed-Fri) Faulkner County Natural Resources Center, 100 Amity Road, Conway, AR, 72032 All portions of the meeting including socials will be held at Faulkner County Natural Resources Center in an effort to reduce meeting costs. This is the building that houses the USFWS headquarters (see page 9). Here is a link with maps and directions: http://www.fws.gov/arkansas-es/directions.html The Arkansas Chapter is not reserving a block of rooms for this meeting. Nearby hotels willing to honor the government rate of $77 for a single occupant: -Hampton Inn, 810 Museum Road, (501) 329-8999 -Days Inn, 1002 East Oak Street, (501) 450-7575 Nearby hotels that will honor a reduced rate (suitable for government employees if shared between two people): -Country Inn and Suites, 750 Amity Road, (501) 932-0500 -Hilton Garden Inn, 805 Amity Road, (501) 329-1444 -Comfort Suites, 705 Museum Road, (501) 329-8548 Tentative Agenda: Wednesday: 1-5 PM - Technical Session 6-9 PM - Pizza and Beer Social Thursday: 8:30 AM-12 PM - Technical Session 1-3 PM - 2013 National Meeting Preparation Session 3-5 PM - Break OR Technical Session Session and Arkansas Alligator Gar Workgroup Meeting time TBA 6-9 PM - Social to include Whole Hog Cafe catered dinner, beverages, poster session, and silent auction Friday: 8:30-10 AM - Technical Session 10 AM-12 PM - Business Meeting 1-3 PM - AFS 2013 Steering Committee Meeting Please bring at least one item for the Silent Auction! Also a stage is available for anyone that would like to bring their musical instruments and perform during the socials. Benjamin G. Batten Assistant Fisheries Biologist E: <mailto:bgbatten@agfc.state.ar.us> bgbatten@agfc.state.ar.us | P: (501) 978-7317 | M: (501) 813-0224

Balancing chronic and emergent problems is always a problem but in this case they're linked. Rebuilding the economy with fewer greenhouse gases can kill two birds with one stone. Hopefully we'll have that foresight. For now, making plans about how to handle fish and game is a good start.

The fault's probably mine for expecting every comment to be negative, FRM. It's good to see that some practical steps are being supported by mainline sporting groups. Maybe we're getting past the knucklehead phase of this problem and we can finally focus on how to handle policy.

Phil has made it pretty clear that personal attacks led to that policy and there have been numerous climate change posts that stayed civil and weren't censored since that policy began. If you want the topic shut down you might need to find another strategy. A lot of people on this forum are members of B.A.S.S. and the other groups supporting that site. It's not likely Phil or Dano are going to censor simple information from and about groups important to outdoor sports.

The view that global average temperatures would decline in the immediate future was never a majority view in climate science at any time. So we don't disagree about much here. The temperatures go up and down, but in the short term they're going up and there are going to be consequences of that. It's good to see us starting to get ready for the change.