In response to Michael Adams’ letter that suggests mountain lions are endangered, I offer a response. The last year that hunters were allowed to hunt mountain lions in California, they killed 126 cats. Approximately 1,000 tags were issued. The selling of tags generated revenue to the state Department of Fish and Game in the thousands of dollars.

After the Mountain Lion Referendum was passed, it became illegal to hunt them. California taxpayers have paid federal trappers to kill 144 lions in California in one year (at a cost to the taxpayers of almost double the revenues previously generated by hunting tags).

  We took a situation that generated revenue and changed it to one that requires taxes. We now exterminate more lions than we did when it was legal to hunt them. This is just one of many cases that have hurt Fish and Game’s budget.

The California Department of Fish and Game has more responsibility than ever, and a smaller budget to perform it with. There are published population studies available (performed by formally educated biologists) that demonstrate lion populations in California are high, very high.

Recently our own (Ventura County Supervisor) Linda Parks wrote an editorial in the Star stating that there are only two adult mountain lions left in the Santa Monica Mountains. Again, those are not the facts. The fact is we lost two of the four adult lions that had radio tracking collars on them. They died of human-introduced poison in their food chain.

The reality is we have many mountain lions in the Conejo Valley. There are at least three just in the Wildwood area alone. (They have recently been spotted together.)

Please do research before writing a letter or article that is misleading. Please do some research before voting on laws. Please get informed before forming an opinion.

Jim Summers

Thousand Oaks