Pro Staff Blog

In Support of Mountain Lion Hunting

Joakim RoaschOn Tuesday, March 25, 2014, we posted a picture of Joakim Rausch with a mountain lion, he legally took in British Columbia.  It’s a fantastic shot of Joakim carrying out this great lion on his shoulders from the backcountry after a hard hunt.  The mountain lion is an exceptional species and in posting the photo, I was hoping we would showcase a great hunter, get a few shares from our fans and followers, and grow our readership along the way.  As I sit here writing this, I still cannot believe the numbers: over 4.5 million people have seen the post, 72,648 have shared the post, 29,173 have liked it and 7,702 people from just about every walk of life have commented on it.

 

Here at HuntingLife.com, we support all legal and ethical fair chase hunting across the entire world.  Our website was built to share the news of the hunting industry, as well as highlight the good work that hunters are doing across the world for habitat conservation, species protection, humanitarian support and education.  We also produce product reviews of the great products we find and write articles and hunting tips.  Our social media accounts draw in fans and followers and we share up fan photos, news articles and items that we feel are interesting to our readers.  We share more than just the biggest trophies we can find. We share the average hunter and the exceptional hunter. Most importantly, we make no apologies to anyone for our passion of living the Hunting Life!

 

Joakim Rausch from http://jrhunting.com/ is a professional guide and booking agent. He travels across the world hunting and leading trips into the backcountry, from Africa to Australia, New Zealand to North America.  Joakim says, “Hunting is a way of life, it is our life! To us, hunting is a lifestyle and a passion that we love to share with fellow hunters and friends!”  Joakim makes no apologies for his guiding and hunting and neither do we.

 

The photos we shared of Joakim and his clients on their many adventures have been a hit with our fans, so we were shocked when his picture of a mountain lion was deleted from our fan page. We posted it again, asking our fans to share it out of respect for the hunter and the animal and in support of all legal hunting across the world, and share they have!!!

 

Mountain lions are apex predators. Throughout North America, they are managed as a game animal by the game departments of each state and Canadian province.  Some states have mountain lions and some states do not. Some states allow limited hunting and some states do not. Mountain lion populations in each state are managed specifically by the tenets of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation.  We stand strongly for the continued hunting of the mountain lion in North America.

 

In Nebraska, for example, we stand strongly behind the efforts of hunters (backed by wildlife biologists) to keep mountain lion hunting legal. In the state of California, we believe Californians should repeal the laws within that state that outlaw mountain lion hunting.  We believe that hunters, not paid government shooters, should have the opportunity to hunt this majestic species in order to help control the growing population of mountain lions in California.

 

I asked Jim Zumbo, who has taken several mountain lions in his lifetime, if he would hunt mountain lion again. Jim responded, “Absolutely. Like everything else, lions need to be managed. Wyoming, like most states, has quotas for each unit. When the quota is reached, the season ends for the year. That’s the biological side. The emotional side is different. To me, there is NOTHING like the thrill of following a pack of hounds as they pursue a big cat, especially over horrid terrain, and when you finally SEE the cat —— wow. My first look at a lion when I was 23 felt like a jolt of electricity hitting me. And by the way, this is a true story. You can ask many westerners. Lion meat is exquisite and in high demand.”

 

I think what shocks me most is the number of hunters who spoke out against hunting the mountain lion.  They support hunting deer and elk and moose – essentially hunting for food – but do not support the hunting of mountain lion. Many do not know that mountain lions are eaten; their meat is most closely associated with pork.

 

In addition, mountain lions are a valuable part of our ecosystem and as a society we must rely upon effective management tools that we have available. Hunting is a valuable part of that management.

 

It comes down to this: there are all types of hunters. There are those who hunt exclusively for food, those who hunt exclusively for trophies, those who hunt for the management of a species, or a combination of any of those. Regardless of where we each fall, let’s allow ourselves to be open to the reasons why others hunt. At least allow the conversation to take place. There will be times when hunting itself comes under fire. We would all fare better if we stood open and united.

 

As always, we will continue to bring you the Hunting Life!!!

 

Kevin Paulson

Founder and CEO

HuntingLife.com

Kevin Paulson

Kevin Paulson is the Founder and CEO of HuntingLife.com. His passion for Hunting began at the age of 5 hunting alongside of his father. Kevin has followed his dreams through outfitting, conservation work, videography and hunting trips around the world.

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2 Comments

  1. oops! That email went off when I was cleaning the barrel.. Which made me saddened. I’d posted pictures with my cat a couple years back and got some pretty abusive comments too, the worst part was the most abusive were from other hunters! So good on you Yogi (Joakim) Save me some lion back strap!

  2. A well written article about a world class hunter. I’ve travelled to Nth America on 4 different occasions to hunt lions. On each hunt we treed cats, but it wasn’t until my last hunt I actually decided to take a cat when hunting in BC. We actually had a picture of Joakim with his cat on our Facebook site a wee while back. It was posted by one of the new ladies in the office and when it got a few anti-hunting remarks by a small minority of people who don’t really understand cat hunting she panicked and took the post down.

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