The state of Nevada has announced a plan to increase the deer population by reducing the number of mountain lions. Animal activists are outraged at the plan, saying that housing developments, drought, and automobile accidents are more detrimental to the deer population than are mountain lions. Kevin Mayer, director of the Nevada Department of Wildlife, says "it's not an effort to exterminate mountain lions. It's an effort to better manage lions with the prey base. Some hunters think the solution to the deer population is to kill a lot of lions and the deer will come back."

The biggest problem with this idea is stated by Mayer himself. It's the hunters who want less lions around. Mountain lions are being blamed for the low deer population, meaning less deer can be hunted. Due to the large number of hunters in the Northwest, the pressure to the Nevada Department of Wildlife might have been great enough to convince them to pass the new plan. Scott Raine, a hunter and wildlife commissioner, said that studies show mountain lions eat about one "deer-sized" animal a week. Raine did not comment on how many deer hunting permits were given out to human hunters this year.

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Is this the right solution to increase the deer population? Should more mountain lions be hunted, or do hunters just want less competition? What do you think of hunting?

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