Here’s a quiz. What large North American mammal regularly kills humans in the eastern part of the U.S.?
What other large mammal could lessen those deaths?
If you answered the first one “deer,” you are correct. If you answered the second one “cougars,” you are also correct.
Earlier this year the on-line journal Conservation Letters published an analysis of returning eastern cougars to their historic range. The authors determined the cougars could prevent 155 human deaths, 21,400 human injuries, and save 2.3 billion in accident costs in a 30-year-period. Perhaps I wouldn’t have run into that deer on 209 if we had some cougars in the area.
Bring ‘em back!
(The article can be found in <onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12280/full?....>)
No comments:
Post a Comment