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from the ecosystems-without-apex-predators dept.
Common Dreams reports:
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today declared the eastern puma extinct and removed it from the list of protected wildlife and plants under the Endangered Species Act. The eastern puma was a subspecies of the animal also known as cougar or mountain lion, which is still widely distributed across the West. It once roamed as far north as southeastern Ontario, southern Quebec, and New Brunswick in Canada; south to South Carolina; and west to Kentucky, Illinois, and Michigan.
The eastern puma's range contracted from the 1790s to the 1890s due to human persecution abetted by the extirpation, through hunting, of its primary prey, white-tailed deer. The last three eastern pumas were killed in 1930 in Tennessee, 1932 in New Brunswick, and 1938 in Maine.
"The extinction of the eastern puma and other apex carnivores such as wolves and lynx upended the ecology of the original colonies and beyond," said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity. "Over a century after deer went extinct in the Northeast, they have returned with a voracious vengeance, and botanists lament the disappearance of formerly abundant plant communities. We have forests that have lost the top and the bottom of the food chain."
The eastern cougar was extinct well before it was protected under the Endangered Species Act, as was the case with eight of the other 10 species that have been delisted for extinction. Overall the Endangered Species Act has been 99 percent successful at saving species from extinction.
A different subspecies of the puma, the Florida panther, survives in a small, isolated and precarious population at the rapidly urbanizing southern tip of Florida. These animals, too, were once widespread, from their namesake state north to Georgia and west to Arkansas and eastern Texas. Cougars from the mountainous West have reclaimed lost habitat and currently reproduce as small populations in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska. Individual Florida panthers and midwestern cougars that have traveled long distances have been hit by cars, shot by hunters or killed by authorities in recent years throughout the Midwest and East, but there is no breeding population in the historic range of the eastern puma.
Editor's note: Not so fast; you can comment on the proposed rule at Regulations.gov.
Original Submission
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JeanCroix on Friday June 19 2015, @12:59PM
And the next apex predator in line, i.e. humans, are being more and more discouraged from hunting the now overpopulated deer - whether it's by anti-gun activists, animal rights types, or just a culture that's becoming more and more urbanized. I myself haven't hunted since I was a teenager, although I keep telling myself I'll start again, "next season"...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday June 19 2015, @01:18PM
Yeah, but where would you hunt? Out West I'd go to the National Forest to hunt, because there is so much of it. In the TriState area around NYC there are so many people it's tough to get far enough away to shoot or to find public land you can hunt on.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by M. Baranczak on Friday June 19 2015, @01:35PM
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Friday June 19 2015, @01:49PM
(Score: 2) by tempest on Friday June 19 2015, @01:57PM
Where there is an over abundance of humans they tend to be culled through traffic accidents.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 20 2015, @09:30AM
That's the dream. Humans are in need of a good culling, through traffic accidents or otherwise.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Friday June 19 2015, @07:12PM
And the next apex predator in line, i.e. humans, are being more and more discouraged from hunting the now overpopulated deer - whether it's by anti-gun activists, animal rights types, or just a culture that's becoming more and more urbanized. I myself haven't hunted since I was a teenager, although I keep telling myself I'll start again, "next season"...
Most states now have far more liberal hunting seasons for deer than when I was younger. The problem is that with suburban growth there is too much land closed off to hunting, either by being in private hands or it is too residential. No longer can you drive down any back road and find a place to hunt. Public lands where you can hunt often see so much pressure that the deer quickly flee to the prohibited areas. The biggest predators deer now have are motor vehicles and domestic dogs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2015, @10:16PM
Domestic dogs? Never heard of that as being a problem for deer. Dogs can be killed by just one kick and many urban breeds really don't know how to hunt. It isn't like cats that are born killers so much so that they murder for fun. Not that I do not believe it. They could easily kill several young deer in one go.
Surely the number one killer are the front grills of commuting vehicles. Mine took out four deer in just one year of commuting through a rural shortcut about 40 miles each way.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 19 2015, @10:20PM
Domestic dogs? Never heard of that as being a problem for deer. Dogs can be killed by just one kick and many urban breeds really don't know how to hunt.
There are feral dogs and fawns can't kill with one kick.