Wendee, if you haven't seen this book, you probably should get it: "Cougar Management Guidelines" by the Cougar Management Guidelines Working Group, 2005, published by Wild Futures, Bainbridge Island, WA. It talks about metapopulations and source-sink structure on pages 42-44. It's not without fault (e.g., it has no index) but it does report a lot of current research findings and how they affect management. And you should also send your question to The Wildlife Society's list.
Warren W. Aney Tigard, Oregon -----Original Message----- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of WENDEE HOLTCAMP Sent: Friday, August 31, 2007 3:57 PM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: mountain lions/source sink management I am working on an article on mountain lions, in a place where attitudes and opinions about them are pretty heated (TX). One source mentioned that in other states that there are "source sink" models of management and this sounded like a really interesting idea. Basically you have areas that provide a source of the mountain lions (such as protected national parks), sinks such as working ranches that tend to kill mountain lions, and then the idea is also that the areas between the source and the sink are "neutral" so that they can harbor some of the expanding source populations but buffer them from the sinks. Does anyone here have personal experience working with a mountain lion population following a source-sink model in a management setting? Or alternatively has anyone worked on models of this type of management? Feel free to send along others' contact info or to forward my email. Also in our previous discussion about hunting and conservation, someone mentioned the David Quammen book Monster of God. I got that and am browsing through it. I can't find the person who suggested this in the Ecolog archives so maybe they emailed me offlist. Anyone on here remember this?? There was something I wanted to mention in my mountain lion article based on that but the book is like 9,000 pages long ;) He's a great writer though, and very eloquent. It's about how certain alpha predators inspire fear in humans, and how that has affected their survival and also is a part of our human cultural history - one we may lose for some species if conservation efforts are not successful. Wendee ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wendee Holtcamp, M.S. Wildlife Ecology Freelance Writer * Photographer * Bohemian <http://www.wendeeholtcamp.com/> http://www.wendeeholtcamp.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Online Nature Writing Course Starts Sep 15. Sign Up Now!