Washington Votes Forum

Introduced in the House on January 14, 2008

The vote was 66 in favor, 29 opposed and 3 not voting

(House Roll Call 0 at House Journal 0)

Click here to view bill details.

I am from the okanogan county and am in the middle of cougar country I have 3 children that love to play outside. Since the pilot program has been in place we have not had any cougars by our house, before the program we would have 3 to 4 cats a winter cross through and usually had to get Fish and wildlife involved with removing the cats. I feel that we can manage the population of cats and have fewer problems with deprevation on private land.

Thus far the pilot program has been a success in Pend Orielle County. Cougar predation on pets/livestock appears to be lessening as a result of the hound hunting. Thank you, the farmers, parents, and pet owners appreciate your concern.

I would also like to thank you for introducing this bill! We all do not live in the city, therefor we encounter different types of concerns- one being the fear of a cougar attack on our family members and pets. Like many city folks, our pets are also like family. Our family strongly supports this bill. Thank you!

I'm a rancher in the Methow Valley and had 7 calves killed by a cougar in my corrals before the pilot project was started. Saw lots of cougar tracks on my place back then. Since the pilot project I've had no problems whatsoever. We absolutely must continue this method of limiting the numbers of cougars. The boot hunters just can't do it. Thanks Bill White, Twisp

i have had calves takin by cougars right close to my doorstep in the past and had many tracks run right threw my yard this project has elliminated the problem a man on foot just can not catch the couger so we need to alow hound hunting for cougar permently thank you very much for this bill

Thank you for introducing HB 2438. This will help all ranchers that must deal with these lions.

Surely there is a better way to safeguard livestock than killing cougars. For one thing, they would be less likely to kill calves if they had more of their natural prey in the wild. I think a moratorium on hunting deer would be a good first start. Then perhaps better fencing around livestock would keep them safe.

THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN. I-655 making it illegal to hunt cougars with dogs passed with a clear majority - for good reason. This hideous practice is unsporting, unfair and unnecessary, supported by people who like to kill. There are other ways to protect your livestock.

Washington State looks ridiculously backwards if hunting cougars with hounds is the preferred way to deal with wildlife. If ranchers and suburbanites insist on building their homes on cougar territory, they should be prepared to install adequate fencing, keep llamas or cattle dogs to keep cougars away, and quit trying to make taxpayers responsible for cougar killing. Keep your pets indoors and don't be so arrogant to assume that you and your domestic animals have more rights than wild animals who were here first!

It's naive to think you can leave your children (or small dogs or cats) outside to play alone regardless of whether you live in cougar country or the city or the suburbs. A pedophile, a stray dog, a raccoon with babies to protect - there are lots of scary things to worry about other than a cougar. I believe it's been over 50 years since a person in Washington State was killed by a cougar.

People aren't so cruel as to allow allow hunting dogs to attack cougars, are they? I reuse to believe this society could stoop any mower.

I live in a rural area and we occasionally have cougars in the area, and while it is hard to have them take the occasional livestock animal, I think that hunting them with dogs takes this too far. It is time that we learn to live with nature and find a better solution than using dogs to hunt cougars.

There are many ways to learn to live with Cougars and other wildlife. **HAVE A LOCAL MEETING to discuss this like Discovery Park(Seattle) did re. park Coyotes. We humans must always watch for dangers; movng vehicles, school shootings, "drive-by's", cruel people & sexual predators, accidents & carelessness, food poisoning, wild animals, etc. **When we kill a Cougar or Coyote, we LEAVE BEHIND its babies, future or present mate, and important predator in Nature's larger scheme of things.

There are easy solutions here. Keep your pets inside and install fencing to keep cougars away from livestock. Don't let your children run around unsupervised. You decided to live in cougar country; now take responsibility for your children and animals without resorting to tearing these beautiful cats apart with your dogs.

Why do we live in such a hateful nation? Why do people fear and hate such beautiful creatures like cougars? They haven't harmed a person in years. We human, must share this planet with all living things. I want my children to live in a world where cougars arn't hunted by dogs. What a cruel and evil thing... I am repulsed that such a thing was suggested or supported! We encroach on their habitat, it is our fault, we invaded into their home. We need to respect their right to live. Hunting with dogs gives an unfair advantage and is just plan sick.

Ranchers need to learn that there are risks to their profession. Cougars were there before ranchers and have a right to continue to live in peace. Maybe the ranchers should invest in better fencing or more lighting. They need to take responibility for the fact they are dangling a meal in front of an animal. It's not the cougars fault. How self centered of a person are you to not have enough intelligence to see the entire picture? Ranchers need to learn to live with cougars!

We need to find better solutions than killing. We are more evolved than that... so I thought.

It's unethical and wrong to hunt cougars with dogs. Infact we should not be hunting them at all.

VOTE NO!

I live in Pend Orielle County and I did not have a real problem with cougars in the first place. I respect them and they respect me. It's people's fault for being stupid enough to live in this area and not know how to protect their pets and teach their children how to act around cougars. My children have been taught to be aware and I feel VERY safe to let them play outside. I have taught them a healthy respect for wildlife. I do not support this program. leave the cougars alone. They were here first. Part of living here is the wonderment of having cougars in my backyard,

please vote no!!!!

"Funny...This is considered almost holy work by farmers and ranchers. Kill off everything you can't eat. Kill off anything that eats what you eat. Kill off anything that doesn't feed what you eat." "It is holy work, in Taker culture. The more competitors you destroy, the more humans you can bring into the world. and that makes it just about the holiest work there is. Once you exempt yourself from the law of limited competition, everything in the world except your food and the food of your food becomes an enemy to be exterminated." ..."any species that exempts itself from the rules of competition ends up destroying the community in order to support its own expansion."

This is a quote from "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn

Thank you for introducing HB 2438 as this will help all who must deal with Cougars.As these cratures are not easily hunting without the use of Hounds.

Somehow it just doesn't surprise me that a Republican introduced this bill. Typical attitude. Crush and kill without any conscience. The Republicans have zero values. Those of you afraid that your children are going to get eaten sound like the kind of people who get educated through cartoons. Open a book once in a while and get the facts. How many people live in Washington State and how many people have been eaten by big bad cougars?

please vote NO!!!

This is barbaric and should not be legal. These poor creatures are being pushed out of their homes and then terrorized! Please vote no!!!!!

You are such hypocrits. The same mentality prevails when you spout off with such moronic shock like "Ohmygod!!!! They are crushing the skulls of those poor poor cows! It's just barbaric!!!" All while you gather round the BBQ to wax ecstatically over how you like your steaks or oooh and ahh over your pot roast or wolf down those burgers and dogs. I bet you don't complain when the farmers rip the life out of the veggies you scarf down either when they harvest the living plants to sustain your barbaric rump. Get a grip. If you are so worried about these poor creatures being pushed out of their natural habitat, do them (and us) a favor and move somewhere else to the inner city where you belong instead of promoting urban sprawl while you shop at the strip malls. That way you can say you really did do something for the habitat instead of polluting it with your verbal diarrhea. Hunting the big cats with dogs was legal as far back as even my grandparents can remember until people like you (mostly liberal, inner city dwellers)decided to inflict your will on others and enact a law to ban cougar hunting using dogs a long while back. Now that you poor souls have succeeded, the cougar population has exploded and has begun to infringe on more settled areas to find prey because the level has been changed so there are now more cougars than the land can support. People have been using domesticated dogs to help in animal hunting since the dawn of the caveman. What will you go after next, the bird hunters with their Retrievers? That's right, it's not about how many people or pets or even livestock have been eaten you poor , misguided soul, it's about controling a predatory animal who has no natural enemies to control its numbers. AND in case you didn't read the whole thing, I quote- 'all new cougar hunting seasons intended to address cougar populations must be designed consistent with the game management plans developed by the WDFW, and allows the WDFW to consider scientific information from sources other than the Washington State University when establishing cougar seasons.' Vote YES to reinstate a law that worked fine for a century before "some" people with their emotional, knee-jerk, mentality decided that they knew better. Signed - that sadistic, cruel rancher who practices regularly in the 'Taker' mentality while putting food on America's tables.

"the cougar population has exploded and has begun to infringe on more settled areas to find prey because the level has been changed so there are now more cougars than the land can support." The idiot who wrote this needs to go back to school, or better yet shoot themselves. The cougar population hasn't exploded, it is the human population that is overtaxing the land and continuing to spread across other species habitat. Cougars have no where else to go. They are forced into small islands of land surrounded by human development. Where are they supposed to go? It is our responsibilyt as humans to respect the fact we are encroaching on their home. We have no right to hunt them at all. And I happen to be a well educated, vegan with a biology degree who does not live in the city and works in one of Washington's National Parks. VOTE NO and respect the wishes of most Americans who have some intelligence and understanding of the reality of our natural world.

How could anyone not admire and respect such an amazing species. why would we want to kill a cougar? Ranchers need to understand they are in the cougar's natural habitat. They have no right to blame a cat for a few calves. It's their own fault. Do some research before you open a ranch next to cougar country.

I am an Washington resident who loves having cougars around. Please do not hunt them with dogs. They do not have much land left to live on. I want my kids to be able to see one, one day. I wouldn't be worried at all about a cougar hurting my kids. Leave Washington's wildlife alone.

Please vote no on this. I do not support it.It doen't seem very fair for the cougar.

I will not support anyone who votes for this bill. It's cruel and twisted.

I live in Pend Orielle County and I do not support this! Leave the cougars alone.

For someone with a supposed 'Biology" degree, you seem to be a fool who can't understand the unbalances that human expansion creates and the necessity for controls. Or just maybe, you are one of those intrepid souls who have all the education and yet lack the common sense of a stone. If that is the best you can muster, you really need to demand a refund from the school that 'gave' your degree to you in the first place, or better yet, go back to that school and try again, the first try was obviously a complete failure. As far as someone 'shooting' themselves, perhaps it is YOU who should go stand in a field where the cougars hunt regularly, unarmed and naked. As the previous writer stated "What a hypocrit!" For someone who lives outside the city, you are obviously a contributor to the problem you so vilify for YOU are one of those who is encroaching on the cougar’s sacred territory. DOH! So, our 'well educated vegan', do you propose that the human race stop expanding? Or maybe we should kill off a few of those who are moving into you 'cougar territory' eh? Your implied foolery so dictates that that is the only way the cougars will continue to be 'uncrowded' and their habitat not encroached upon. Or perhaps you are advocating having less people living outside the confines of the city in which case, you better start packing. Perhaps we need less National Parks so we will have less tourists to molest the wildlife and crowd them out; maybe less roads through those parks or a few less 'intrusive' ranger and staff buildings eh? Gee, you seem so 'educated'. You really need to expand your tunnel vision; many decades ago, the cat populations were kept in check by many different means, no less among those means was man himself and the hunt. That balance has indeed been upset. It was upset by a stupid law years ago that stopped one of the few remaining natural enemies (man) from being able to hunt the predators in a manner that enables man to be even slightly successful in the hunt. By making it more difficult back when that law was enacted, the cougar had less to control it's population therefore, the cats were more able to increase that population. Population increases cause ripple affects across the entire food chain of a given habitat area and when the food chain is taxed beyond a certain limit, the predators are forced to expand both territory and targeted species for sustenance. Come on biology expert, that concept is taught in Bio 101. By the way, you are also appear very obviously naive about hunting practices in general. The same thing happened in the Midwest with deer. Protective laws there caused deer populations to explode so that the deer were eating and causing damage to many crop areas. On top of that, the deer had so overpopulated those areas that they were dying by the hundreds in the winter for lack of food. The wildlife departments there finally had to respond by allowing hunters to take more deer during the regulated season just to help control the populations. You really seem to be ignorant of many facts for one so 'educated' By restoring the ability of the hunter to use dogs to assist in the hunt does nothing more than restore a balance that was upset because the same type of attitude as you display in the first place. Please go blow smoke up someone else’s ass.

Finally someone is taking the initiative to go in the right direction. Instead of going backwards, this bill makes more sense than any I have seen in quite awhile. The Smith family/redplott

I am a housewife, born and raised in Grant County. I will show support. Anyway, I can for anyone who supports this very intelligent bill . Brenda & family

Cougar saftey problems are Real. I would guess most of those voting NO don't have to deal with these problems. Those City slickers are the very reason we are here today faced with this delima. We've tried their ideas for more than 12 years and they didn't work very well, We are finally getting back on track. Please vote yes.

Please Vote Yes for this bill. It's long overdue.