The tracking by satellite of a wild cougar through California sadly ended with the healthy young animal being trapped and shot. It's only crime was to successfully locate a food source - a part-time farmer's livestock.
I don't deny the need to protect that livestock from predatory cougars (or even coyotes such as we saw in the wild yesterday)... I do though feel more could have been done in the name of science, if not biodiversity, to protect both.
Why collar and track predators if you aren't going to protect the subject of your study? Why do this sort of study at all? What was learned apart from it's ability to cross highways - possibly via underpasses specifically built for that purpose?The reports and photograph portray a very healthy, wild animal. Surely it could, and should, have been relocated and studied further!
The lack of objection to the animal's destruction brings into question the State's competence to manage, let alone study, wildlife in California.
Photograph by courtesy of: http://www.ejphoto.com/cougar_page.htm
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