Over the years, I’ve always enjoyed poking fun at our media and local culture’s obsession with mountain lion sightings.
And hey, I get it.
Oklahoma doesn’t have a permanent population of the big cats—the ones spotted here are usually lost, passing through, or stuck in the Oklahoma Trails exhibit at the OKC Zoo – so when one does show up on a trail cam or Ring doorbell or whatever, it’s a rare and exciting thing that gets a lot of attention.
In fact, nowadays, you don’t even need a real mountain lion to get a mountain lion’s worth of media coverage!
As Brent Skarky—the Woodward and Berenstain of the OKC media—taught us, all it takes is a bobcat pawing at a chicken coop, and boom – you've got a full-on mountain lion panic and a flood of clicks to your website.
Well, I’ve got bad news for all the bobcats out there pretending to be mountain lions in a desperate bid for fame. Your hobby just got a lot more dangerous.
Earlier this week, the Oklahoma Senate passed a bill that would sanction and regulate mountain lion hunting in the state.
I guess that makes sense in a warped, tough-guy Oklahoma sort of way. Mountain lions are a rare and majestic part of our wildlife, so naturally, we’ve decided the best move is to let people hunt and kill them.
Via KOCO:
A new bill would allow a handful of people to hunt mountain lions in Oklahoma.
Senate Bill 1073 would give the Department of Wildlife up to five special permits to give out in a lottery…
The author of the bill also thought it could be good for tourism, but those advocating against the bill said that's not a good enough reason to push this bill through.
Yep. It’s official. Oklahoma is now so desperate for tourism dollars that we’re lying to people to get them out here.
What’s next? Whaling permits for Lake Eufaula? A Bigfoot hunting season in Broken Bow?
Actually…
In all seriousness, I’m no wildlife expert. I dropped out of Boy Scouts after three weeks and think camping is a good nap spoiled—but shouldn’t we have an actual, sustainable mountain lion population before we go balls-to-the-wall marketing mountain lion hunts to out-of-state tourists?
From killing a rare-to-the-state animal to conning people who want to shoot one, the whole thing feels pretty unethical.
Just imagine being a hunter who shells out real money to fly into Oklahoma, ready for a big cat adventure, only to learn that—surprise!—we don’t technically have any mountain lions.
That’d definitely earn us a bad Yelp review:
“Came to Oklahoma to hunt mountain lions. State only had bobcats, coyotes and Joe Exotic’s old ligers. Killed those instead. Two stars.”
If you want to learn more about the bill, you can check out the full details at KOCO.com. They interview Brendan Hoover – a former Applebee's bartender who's now a lobbyist with the Kirkpatrick Policy Group. They also apparently interviewed an annoyed mountain lion who voiced his silent disapproval.
In the meantime, if you’re an Oklahoma bobcat, I’d advise you to follow this bill, and – if it passes – watch your back.
Stay with The Lost Ogle, we’ll keep you advised.
