Dear Commissioners,
I live in [your city], CO, and I am writing to request that the Colorado Wildlife Commission and the Division of Wildlife use scientific management to protect mountain lions from over-hunting, especially mother lions with dependent kittens.
Female cougars are the cornerstone of cougar conservation. They produce few kittens, spend significant time and energy raising their young, and kittens that are younger than nine months old will die of starvation if their mothers are hunted and killed. While it is possible for hunters to determine if a mountain lion is a female, it is difficult to know if that female is a mother. Therefore, it makes sense to protect female mountain lions.
Mountain lions are an important umbrella species and are a critical top carnivore for Colorado's wild places, and therefore need our protection. [Your personal comments here.]
The Colorado Division of Wildlife's data show that most mountain lion mortalities in Colorado result from sport hunter kills. We request that the Colorado Wildlife Commission require the Colorado Division of Wildlife to set nominal subquotas, in numbers supported by the scientific literature, for each of Colorado's cougar data analysis units in order to protect mothers and their dependent young.
Sincerely,
[Your name]