Kristine Teichman, a biology PhD candidate at UBC’s Okanagan campus, was quoted in a Vancouver Sun article about the impacts of cougar trophy-hunting.
Researchers from UBCO, the University of Victoria, the University of Cape Town and the Raincoast Conservation Foundation discovered that when trophy hunters killed a larger adult male the younger “sub-adults” became more prone to human conflict.
“We can infer from other studies that when trophy hunters take out the strongest male cougar you have more dispersal of younger males. It creates an opening and what happens is these teenagers are moving around and getting into more conflict,” said Teichman, one of the study authors.
The story also appeared in 24 Hours Vancouver.
