RENO -- Mountain lion advocates are up in arms over new plans announced by Nevada wildlife officials to kill more lions in order to help reverse a decline in mule deer numbers.

Ken Mayer, director of the Nevada Department of Wildlife, said his agency now plans to conduct regular statewide studies of deer and other "priority'' wildlife species.

The department will initiate "a program of intensive, sustained predator reduction'' in areas where lions have been found to adversely affect deer numbers and base the exact number of lions to be killed on science, he said.

The state Board of Wildlife Commissioners, meeting in Reno last week, directed agency staff to pursue the policy with the help of sport hunters and contract employees from the U.S. Agriculture Department's Wildlife Services.

Unlike California, Nevada allows hunting of lions. Commissioners also set a quota of 306 lion tags to be issued for the year beginning March 1 -- down 40 from the previous year -- but increased the number of lion tags that a hunter could obtain from two to three.

At the same time, they rejected a proposal by Assemblyman Jerry Claborn, D-Las Vegas, to establish a $500 bounty for the return of any lion carcass.

"It's not an effort to exterminate mountain lions,'' Mayer said. "It's an effort to better manage lions with the prey base. Some hunters think the solution to the deer problem is to kill a lot of lions and the deer will come back.''

But lion advocates sharply criticized the new policy, saying studies show drought and habitat loss due to wildfires and development are far more important factors for declining deer numbers.

Nevada's deer population fell from 240,000 in 1988 to 108,000 in 2008, while its current lion population ranges from 1,500 to 2,400, according to the wildlife department.

`"Basically, what they're doing is applying the Sarah Palin method of wildlife management, which is to remove animals with big teeth in order to promote the animals hunters like to shoot,'' said D.J. Schubert, a wildlife biologist with the Animal Welfare Institute based in Washington D.C.

"It's an archaic form of wildlife management. Unfortunately, they're making the mountain lion a scapegoat, despite the importance of the mountain lion as a top-line predator in any ecosystem,'' he said.

Palin, the Alaska governor, supports a predator control program that allows private permitted citizens to shoot wolves from the air in an effort to reverse a decline in moose and caribou numbers.

Don Molde, a former board member of the Defenders of Wildlife and a longtime member of the Humane Society of the United States, said Washington, Oregon and New Mexico have cut back on similar programs because of unintended damage to lion numbers.

Molde contends the effort is being orchestrated by "extremists'' on the wildlife commission who were appointed by Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons. The governor made four appointments to the nine-member panel last year.

"This whole thing is nonsense,'' the retired Reno physician said. "This is a non-scientific effort to kill an animal just because they don't like it. It's an irrational dislike of an animal that has every right to live here.''

But wildlife commissioner Scott Raine of Eureka said he thinks lions are a major factor for the deer decline in many areas, citing studies that show lions eat one "deer-size'' animal a week.

"Nobody is trying to eliminate them,'' said Raine, an avid hunter. "We just want to bring them down to a reasonable number, a sustainable number. Otherwise, deer will continue to die off.

"They have to be managed. It's time to keep a happy medium,'' he said.

Mayer said the department has targeted lions for removal in some areas in the past but not as extensively as the new policy requires.

``We're going to do it more on a statewide basis now,'' he said. ``We want to make sure we're taking them in appropriate areas and at appropriate numbers.''

In 2007, hunters killed 145 lions and Wildlife Services killed 37 lions in the state for a total of 182.

Claborn and commission Chairman Gerald Lent, a Gibbons appointee, did not return phone calls seeking comment over the weekend.