We knew that

We knew that

Habitat loss an issue for Westerners as well as wildlife

April 24, 2001

A new report from the National Wildlife Federation has confirmed what any Westerner with a lick of common sense could have told that organization: People are moving into territory formerly occupied by wild animals.

In this instance, the NWF is talking about mountain-lion habitat. The study said that in some rapidly developing areas, lions have been pushed so far from their natural range that entire populations have died off. In others, the cats have been forced to feed of smaller animals like raccoons and skunks, not to mention pet dogs and cats and occasionally humans.

Mountain-lion attacks on humans are not as rare as they used to be. In recent years, visitors to Mesa Verde National Park and Roxborough State Park have been attacked, and a 12-year-old boy in Rocky Mountain National Park was killed by a mountain lion in 1997.

Two different scenarios apply. Along the Front Range and the I-70 corridor, where vast subdivisions spring up almost overnight, lions are kept on the run, searching for a new place to settle. That’s not generally the way it happens in southwestern Colorado, where our pattern of development involves scattered construction in areas that still retain their rural character.

People who move into such areas do encounter the creatures already living there, and often, they can coexist. Prairie dogs and skunks are an annoyance, but they still exist in abundance and the loss of habitat for a few, or the extermination of those that actually cause problems, doesn’t threaten the entire species.

Large carnivores, though, are a different story. Mountain lions and bears are not afforded the benefit of the doubt. Although most of the stories are apocryphal, we’ve heard enough stories about mountain lions carrying off small children that many residents tend to shoot first and ask questions later.

Multiply that by the number of areas across the Rocky Mountain West and we can begin to see a pattern developing. Lion habitat is shrinking. It’s restricted to pockets here and there, which means that animals have a harder time finding mates and fewer opportunities to enlarge their gene pool. They face increasing risks from humans, not only from conflicts with development but from traffic and from diseases introduced by domestic species.

It’s not a pretty picture, and the Endangered Species Act, not widely supported by the Bush Administration, will not be enough to save the big cats. It won’t restore habitat; it probably won’t even be effective in protecting critical habitat that still exists.

It’s possible to justify the loss of an individual mountain lion, when it seems to present a threat to humans or livestock. It’s harder to imagine the West without mountain lions. Will it look exactly like the eastern U.S., where everything is parceled out neatly and all the animals are tame — and where there’s very little of anything that doesn’t belong specifically to some individual or corporation?

The problems the mountain lion faces are a symptom of a larger change. The West isn’t as free as it used to be, and species that depend on that freedom — on open spaces and broad horizons — don’t fit well here any more. What does that mean for humans who moved to this area because they needed the same freedom? That used to be the definition of a Westerner.