When Mountain Lion Management Turns to Quackery

This year, in what it calls a “study,” Utah’s Division of Wildlife Resources is killing off mountain lions in an effort to increase mule deer herds. It has hired trappers from the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, authorizing them to dispatch lions with any method, including banned traps and neck snares.

The study, covering roughly 8.6 million acres in six management units, will run for at least three years with the goal of indiscriminately exterminating “as many (lions) as possible.”

Buying into this ancient predator-prey superstition are the nonprofits Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife...