their own programs. Control efforts in California grew along with its farming and ranching industries. Between 1919 and 1947, the state employed two full-time mountain-lion hunters, Jay Bruce and C.W. Ledshaw. In his autobiography, Cougar Killer, Bruce claimed to have bagged 669 of the animals. According to a study published in 1931 by Jean Linsdale, another of Joseph Grinnell’s students, poisoning programs aimed at predators and rodent pests were under way on more than a third of California’s land, at a cost of $812,478. Grinnell calculated that these programs were killing more than fifty million animals per year, including members of many “non-target” species, some which were in danger of extinction.18
Early in his career, Grinnell seemed conflicted about how to deal with predators. He supported the control of rattlesnakes and mountain lions, advocated the sustainable harvest of fur-bearing mammals, proposed experiments in game farming, and accepted that scientific management would require some limited local culling of problem species. But he thought it was wrong to poison animals or subject them to unnecessary suffering, and programs that sought to eradicate rather than control predators horrified him. Over time, he became convinced that most control programs were wasteful, destructive, and unsupported by scientific evidence, and he called for an end to indiscriminate shooting, trapping, and poisoning. By 1930 Grinnell had emerged as the country’s foremost opponent of predator control policies and practices.19
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