Lies about lions

Speakin’ of things that are hard to believe, following is a column on mountain lions written 24 years ago on June 18, 1992:

I just ran across a clipping from the Aug. 21, 1991 issue of the Wall Street Journal. You locals will get a kick out of this.

John. D. Appel is a New York law professor who got very concerned about the whitetail deer reproducing at a great rate near his summer home on Fire Island, a long narrow spit of land south of the main Long Island, about 50 miles from Manhattan. It’s where thousands of urban people go to escape the city.

Lawyer Appel posted a broadsheet near the Saltaire city beach last summer warning people about the danger of Lyme disease, which he said comes from ticks carried by the deer. He pointed out that, “As the deer population increases, more illness and death will result.” He also said the deer were destroying gardens and natural vegetation, which protects “the fragile Fire Island terrain.”

Appel explained his plan to kill off deer, suggesting people send tax-deductible contributions to the Fire Island Puma Committee. Then to motivate some good donations, he offered up the following FACTS:

“Scientists, environmental specialists, and public-health experts are in unanimous agreement the ideal method of deer control is the puma or ‘mountain lion.’ The puma is effective and neat with deer entirely consumed except for the antlers.

“Contrary to erroneous opinion, pumas present ABSOLUTELY NO DANGER to humans or pets: Pumas are afraid of humans, and will always flee from them, so it is unlikely children or adults will ever even see one.

“Pumas do not represent any danger to dogs (in fact it is the other way around, since dogs are used to hunting pumas), or to cats (since pumas ARE cats).”

Mr. Appel stated that 30 breeding pairs of pumas (a total of 60) would be released in the “occupied area” of Fire Island and results would be immediately apparent. He also said pumas mate for life, so the number of females and males “must be equal.”

It is 10 months since John D. Appel publicized his brainstorm, and I’m assuming someone in the New York Fish and Game department may have stopped his scheme … but maybe they didn’t. One never knows about New Yorkers.

Had almost forgot the Appel story until this week, but dug it out when I got the following release from the Montana Fish and Game containing the following info:

• From July of 1989 to August of 1990 a total of 28 “lion incidents” were reported in Montana. Four of the incidents were classified as livestock attacks, leaving 24 cases considered lion/human interactions.

• 54 percent of the cases reported involved a perceived of real threat of aggressive lion behavior toward humans. Two actual attacks on humans were reported. Those attacks resulted in one injury and one death.

• In 15 percent of the incidents, pets at the scene, were the subject of attack or had been fed upon by a lion. (Among the examined lions shot, several had fed on either dogs, cats, or both.)

Besides the above press release, I have collected much data on pumas, panthers, mountain lions, and/or catamounts. Files have a thick 1975 treatise on lions, “The Cougar in the United States and Canada,” written by Ronald M. Novak documenting 67 attacks on humans by lions, 24 of them fatal and 43 non-fatal, and we know of at least a half dozen cases since then.

The possibility could exist that Appel is sneakier than we think, and is actually working on a plan to get rid of fellow New Yorkers so he can have more room at the beach.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Montana Fish and Game had to kill a troublesome bear that no state wanted. It occurred to me, if this New York lawyer is slick enough to have actually convinced the required number of people to plant lions in a densely populated area, then we might solve a big problem here by letting him know what wonderful, harmless and playful creatures the grizzly bears are.

G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning columnist for Hungry Horse News. He lives in Kalispell.