Mountain lions in the United States are very unfortunate. Human activities often put them in danger or directly target and kill them. They are victims of poaching and trophy hunting in states like Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona.

South Dakota even recently voted to allow trophy hunters to kill 30 percent of their mountain lions. A few months ago a woman made headlines when she killed a mountain lion to check off her bucket list and posted gory celebration photos online.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife is even being urged by conservationists and animal rights activists to help mountain lions survive by using monitoring and relocation rather than killing them over territory.

Basically, mountain lions in this country do not have it easy. In California, the mountain lions have other things to worry about too. In the Santa Monica Mountains of California, mountain lions have to dangerously cross through the freeway and roads that cut through their habitat.

Many of them don’t survive the roads and freeway. The state is working on building a large wildlife crossing, but there are still other factors harming the lions.

Poisons called second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides (SGARs)are aimed at killing rice and mats. It’s a cruel way to kill any animal given that the mice and rats hemorrhage to death and it’s very painful. But they aren’t the only ones suffering. When smaller animals die with these poisons in their system, they poison the animals that eat their carcass.

According to World Animal News, “Since 2002, National Park Service researchers have documented the presence of anticoagulant rodenticide compounds in 23 out of 24 local mountain lions that they have tested, including in a three-month-old kitten.” Recently, a six-year-old male mountain lion died becoming the fifth lion as part of a long-term study to die from these poisons.

These poisons are harming wildlife and need to be banned. Assembly member Richard Bloom agrees and introduced the California Ecosystems Protection Act (AB-1788). This bill aims to ban the use of anticoagulants as pesticides, including SGARs except for very specific situations. To support the bill, sign this petition and contact California lawmakers urging them to pass this bill to protect mountain lions!

This article was first published by OneGreenPlanet on 25 October 2019.