I am glad of one thing, this issue has produced an  interesting 
discussion on this web site.  It seems to me there used to be such 
discussions, but that ended a couple years ago.  Now it seems the most 
frequent info from the site is the latest sewage spill.

It seems the discussion has tended to nit-pick the details, but ignore 
my main point.  Is it really worth the cost in bad public relations to 
promote mountain lions in Iowa?

But, nit picking the details is also fun. 
-A comment from Bill--dogs will also kill deer, especially in deep 
snow.  Is it better from deer to die by a gun shot or being eaten alive 
by a pack of dogs?
-I wouldn't shoot the mountain lion because other people were afraid of 
them, or from my own fear.  I would claim a healthy respect for the 
lions.  Whether you would or would not shoot the lion is simply a matter 
that good people have different FEELINGS  about.
-On that salt lick with birth control drug--I watch my science journals 
for any result where dear birth control has worked in a wild or captive 
population.  I may have missed something and the technology keeps 
improving--but what I read of birth control efforts have produced 
miserable failures.  That is contrary to the claim of wishful thinking 
animal rights groups.  One method of birth control involved twice 
shooting the deer with a dart gun with a pharmaceutical.  That also 
required an external mark on the deer since you had to know if that was 
dose one or two.  After the first shot deer would not come anywhere near 
the baiting station where they has been shot the first time.  I believe 
that was on Long Island in NY.  Baiting stations with drugged bait 
seemed promising, but it required repeat visits to the bait.  The deer 
came for awhile, but then decided they wanted acorns in their diet and 
move away and got insufficient doses of the drug.  Birth control in a 
large fenced population at a government facility brought dramatic 
reductions the first year, but even with continued efforts they found 2 
yrs later that the herd had returned to its high numbers.  I loved the 
proposal that we could use a virus to sterilize deer.  What if it 
mutated and got into my daughter?
-In theory ecosystem management is a good thing with predators that 
control herbivores and low enough levels of herbivores to avoid impacts 
to uncommon or rare species such as plants.  However, with our heavily 
impact agro-ecosystem that is really impractical.
-I think a good question is what is causing the increase in deer 
populations in Iowa and, as mentioned, in Wisconsin.  The classic 
ecology text would say thecause is the  abundance of edge habitat.  I 
would guess edges in Iowa are unchanged of have even decreased  (with 
large farms and farm fields) over the last several decades.  I would 
hypothesize that the milder winters due to global warming are the 
(somewhat difficult to prove) cause.

Lanny Schwartz

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