If you were law-abiding, you should have tipped off the Game Ranger to poachers. Game wardens are assigned a lot of territory and they require help to stop poaching. Hunter Education classes mention this, more than once.
As far as the PROTECTED cougars, the hunter in question is breaking the law. Mind you, I did not say that the law is correct. I remember when California banned the hunting of mountain lions, they showed the baby cat, or the baby cat with the mother cat. What they did not show is what the mother cat hunts to feed to the baby cat. Domestic pets, cats, dogs, deer, and other sources of meat. Some hunters I talk to say that the deer population in California is lower now since they have banned mountain lion hunting. Go here to check out about deer population trends.
On the same site, they have hunter's feedback and you hear from long time hunters as to how the population of deer has decreased since mountain lion hunting was banned. Not too long ago, there was a woman jogger who was mauled/killed by a mountain lion. I wonder if the woman was still alive as it was being eaten alive by the mountain lion.
Link here Mountain Lion attack
I wonder if the family of that woman or that child knew about the policies that contributed to their loved one's deaths. I do not subscribe to the belief that we should go back to the days when humans hid in caves during the night to hide from these predators.