Editor:
What is the mentality of the conservation office when they can display a perfectly healthy, dead cougar on the tailgate of a truck, like a prize (Coast Reporter, Feb. 5)?
Don't they have the alternative to tranquilize and relocate to a more natural environment where the animal can live a healthy life balancing nature? What's gone wrong with this department? Don't they realize this animal will only take up residence in an area where there is an abundance of food, so why not focus on the deer population which is their main source of food and maybe this wasteful destruction of such a beautiful and scarce animal will not have to happen so frequently.
It seems to me that they do not understand what their job stands for - conservation not destruction.
Gary Jollimore
Madeira Park
