Scenes collected by the Colorado Department of Parks and Wildlife capture an ongoing problem. Mountain lions are prowling in people's yards and in neighborhood parks, showing up on doorsteps and sprinting through backyards.

Colorado

Mountain lions are increasingly being seen in human-populated areas in Colorado, according to the Colorado Department of Parks and Wildlife. These encounters include instances of the animals prowling in residents' yards, appearing in neighborhood parks, showing up on doorsteps, and sprinting through backyards. This pattern of behavior signals an ongoing issue of wildlife making their presence known in residential communities.



Mountain lions increasingly interacting with Coloradans 

Scenes like these collected by the Colorado Department of Wildlife capture an ongoing problem. Mountain lions prowling into people's yards and neighborhood parks, showing up on doorsteps and sprinting through backyards. So Colorado has a very healthy mountain lion population. We estimate we have between 3800 and 4400 independent mountain lions, which doesn't count kittens. That healthy population, some say, isn't necessarily healthy for humans. State officials say the lions and people are increasingly interacting and are developing a new plan to keep them apart. A plan that would likely include continuing the hunting of mountain lions. We're talking about the people that want a trophy that want to go out and kill. You know, people travel to Africa to shoot lions and elephants and rhinoceroses. And there's people here in the United States that come to Colorado on even Colorado natives that go out and want to shoot mountain lions. Pat Craig is with the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Colorado and part of a group proposing a ballot measure to ban trophy hunting of mountain lions as well as the fur trapping of bobcats. The group called Cats Art Trophies needs about 125,000 signatures to get the measure on the upcoming ballot. They use dogs and these packs of dogs will chase a mountain lion and these dogs have radio collars. And so really the hunter doesn't do much of anything. So for us, it's just it's not even considered to be fair hunting or any kind of traditional hunting like people that subsist on the meat that they would normally get. Some hunting organizations have weighed in against the proposal, saying the proposition would be detrimental to professional wildlife management efforts in Colorado and devastating to the heritage of Colorado sportsmen and women. The Colorado Parks and Wildlife have rolled out a new mountain lion plan for Colorado's East Slope. The department has no position on the ballot proposal, but it does allow license hunting of mountain lions for population control. We study very closely how mountain lions are existing on the landscape, how the health of the population is doing and then use hunting quotas and hunters to help us achieve our population objectives. So if you can control the female population and really manage the population where you want to be with the female mountain lions, then you can control how many kittens they produce a year because the male can mate with a lot of different females, but females can only have one letter a year. Those wanting to ban trophy hunting claim that many hunters don't harvest and eat the meat from the mountain lions. However, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife, hunters are required to prepare mountain lions for food, which means strictly just trophy hunting is already prohibited during the 2022 2023 mountain lion hunting season. About 2600 hunters killed 502 cats. The potential ballot measure would still allow for the killing of wildcats in scenarios where they are deemed a threat to human life, livestock or property. We want to be able to put that out there for voters to vote on it because we're very confident that they're going to say no, hunting is okay, but not trophy hunting like this. Thomas Hoppo, Scripps News, Denver.

Heavy rains in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul killed 39 people, with another 68 still missing, the state civil defense agency said Friday, as record-breaking floods devastated cities and forced thousands to leave their homes.

Rio Grande

Record-breaking rain hits southern Brazil

A former immigration detainee has been bailed after allegedly threatening police with a knife in Melbourne. It follows the recent violent home invasion allegedly committed by another released detainee in Western Australia Pressure is mounting on Federal Immigration Minister Andrew Giles to be held to account.

Canberra

Pressure mounts on Immigration Minister after latest detainee incident

Mexican authorities have reportedly discovered a fourth body near the cliff site where Perth brothers Jake and Callum Robinson disappeared, along with their American friend Jack Carter Rhoad. The Australian family of the brothers are en route to Mexico. The bodies are yet to be formally identified.

Ensenada

Fourth body discovered in Mexico search for Australian brothers

Ukraine is eagerly waiting for Western aid as Russia racks up more victories on the battlefield. Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron on a visit to Kyiv gave Ukraine the go-ahead to use British weapons to strike directly at Russia.

Kyiv

Ukraine Invasion

U.K. allows its weapons to be used on Russian soil

Canadian police have charged three Indian men with the murder of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar last year and said they were probing whether the men had ties to the Indian government.

Surrey

Canada police charge three with murder of Sikh leader

China has launched an uncrewed spacecraft on a nearly two-month mission to retrieve rocks and soil from the far side of the moon, the first country to make such an ambitious attempt.

Wenchang

China launches mission to far side of the moon

Britain's opposition Labour Party won a parliamentary seat in northern England on Friday (May 3) and control of several councils, inflicting heavy losses on the governing Conservatives to pile more pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

London

U.K.'s Labour claims big early win over Conservatives

Turkey has announced that it is halting trade with Israel, worth $7 billion a year, until a permanent ceasefire and humanitarian aid are secured in Gaza. Israel denounced the decision as breaking trade agreements.

Ankara

Turkey to stop trade with Israel until Gaza ceasefire

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Paris

States doing less to support press freedom, says watchdog

Arizona's Democratic governor signed a bill overturning an 1864 law banning abortion, a month after the state's supreme court said the Civil War-era rule was valid.

Arizona

Arizona governor signs bill repealing 1864 abortion ban

U.S. President Joe Biden said that both freedom of speech and the rule of law must be respected in protests at college campuses over Israel's war in Gaza. In response to a reporter's question, Biden said that the campus protests had not forced him to reconsider his policies in the Middle East.

Washington

Biden breaks silence on protests at University Campuses

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New York

More than 1,000 student protesters arrested across U.S.

English voters are heading to polling stations to pick mayors, councilors and a new lawmaker in the last electoral test for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak before a national vote later this year.

Voters head to polls in last test for U.K.'s Sunak

The US State Department accused Russia of having used a chemical weapon against Ukrainian forces in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, while also announcing fresh sanctions against Moscow. In addition to the chemical agent chloropicrin, Russia also used "riot control agents (tear gas) as a method of warfare in Ukraine, also in violation of the CWC," the department said in a factsheet.

Zaporizhzhia

U.S. accuses Russia of using chemical weapons in Ukraine

There are grave concerns for Perth brothers Jake and Callum Robinson who are missing on a surf trip in Mexico's Baja region. The pair have failed to arrive at their accommodation and are not responding to contact from their families.

Council of the City of Sydney

Grave fears for brothers missing on Mexico surf trip

Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers has kept open the prospect of tax incentives in the budget as business warned that changes to foreign investment laws. It comes amid criticism that budget spending could prompt further inflation and prompt rate rises.

Government hints at further tax incentives in Budget

Colombian President Gustavo Petro says his country will break diplomatic relations with Israel. He's criticised Israel's conduct since the start of the war on Gaza. Petro requested to join South Africa's case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide.

Bogotá

Israel-Gaza War

Colombia ends diplomatic relations with Israel

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, pushing to get more aid into Gaza, while urging Hamas to accept a deal that would halt fighting and bring some hostages home from the enclave.

Jerusalem

Blinken pushes for sustained aid into Gaza during Israel trip

Police in Georgia fired teargas and rubber bullets at protesters demonstrating against a bill that would require organizations – including media and NGOs – that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as agents "pursuing the interests of a foreign power." The bill has been dubbed the "Russian law" by its detractors.

Tbilisi

Thousands protest against Georgia's 'foreign influence' bill

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Netanyahu vows to invade Rafah 'with or without' ceasefire deal

Qantas has apologised to customers after its app exposed personal passenger data. The airline blames a technical disruption and says the data breach was not a cyber security incident.

Qantas app data breach exposes customer data

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The Hague

ICJ rejects measures over German arms exports to Israel

New York police have entered Columbia University and arrested protesters barricaded inside a building who have been calling on the New York school to divest itself from companies associated with Israel.

Police enter Columbia University, arrest protesters

A smiling and healthy-looking King Charles returned to public duties on Tuesday (April 30) for the first time since he was diagnosed in February with cancer, paying a visit to a treatment center for the disease in London.

King Charles returns to public duties, visits cancer center

A 14-year-old boy is dead and multiple people injured after a daylight sword attack in Hainault, in east London. The alleged attacker tasered and arrested by Police shortly afterwards.

Hainault

Teenage boy killed in London sword attack

Brittany Higgins has failed in a bid to delay a defamation trial brought against her by Senator Linda Reynolds over social media posts made in July last year. Fiancé David Sharaz, also named in the case, calling for the Senator to drop the case.