BigGameHoundsmen.com

I've had enuf DRAMA..........

Thought I ask a couple hunting questions......

Here's one for you guys that hunt year round-

How much change is there from winter to summer patterns in your area? Do you notice lions hanging out in the "lower country" in the summer or do they follow the game species to the "higher country" as the feed gets better in higher elevations. I've noticed around here during the winter when the deer and elk are lower we have fewer depridation issues with lions and during the summer when the fawns and calf elk are born and they move to the higher elevations, the sheep and calves get hammered. Does this mean that lions don't travel with the game species or does it mean that only some of them do? I guess that I assumed they would follow the deer and elk, but now I'm rethinking that opinion. I know that lions are territorial but I assumed that their territory moved according to the season.

Another one-

The fish and game here in Montana lowered the quota in my area. In the areas that I hun last year there was a total of 12 lions possible with a sub quota of 6 females. This year we have had our quota's cut about in half. I have had conversations in the past about population management. They have left me to wonder which philosophy is correct. Take our area for instance. I feel that we have a sufficient pupulation of deer and elk to support quite a large population of lions. On a side note, we do have a good population based on the ammount of tracks that are available to run during season. I've been told that a dominant female will control quite a large area(mabey 20 square miles?) In the instance around here, there is way more than enough game to support her, her cubs, and the occasional tom travelling through. If she is harvested, possibly 2 of her off spring will assume her old area. Then we would have twice as many reproducing females in the same area. Is this accurate?

Scott

the area i hunt in idaho it seems to me that lions follow the deer and elk down into lower elevations. u can still catch some up high but a majority of them follow the game. in my opinion wherever u find the deer and elk in winter is where u will find the cats. and the biggest prob later in the year when everything is having babies or cows are calving its the coyotes that take a toll on those not cats

This question as to movement with game migrations is very sensitive to areas. In the more northern areas asuch as you live when all prey species finally migrate to lower ground or river or creek drainages of course cougars will have to follow or starve. In areas further south where migrations still happen but they are less concentrated we don't see the massive shift of predator or prey.

Female lions don't dominate their territory as much as many think. It is still the tom that dominates the territories and sub territories within his realm. Knock an adult female out and you mess up the mix and my kill as many as five lions doing so cuz you will piss the old man off when he comes calling. Many females and their sub females co-habitate the same territory for several years. Why five lions? Well that is an average. The females two kittens cuz the tom will kill them or they will die of starvation. Well she may have three but two is the aveerage of survival. And her two surviving subs from the last litter that are booted out just a little ways but may even still share the remains of her kills. She is gone, big daddy comes back, kills the kittens or they are already starved or run into some place and get in trouble. Then he starts prowling and if there is a tom sub he will kill it, and if there is a female and she is not ready and can't get away he will kill her or she will wander across the road and another road hunter or vehicle will kill her. So killing females will really shake of the hood. Kill a dominant tom and a few more kittens will live awhile but it won;t take long and the word will get around and a surviving young tom or a kicked out old tom will move in and take over the harem.

Mike, thanks for the response. I was moreover talking about lions staying in the wintering range all the time and suplimenting their diet during the summer. If I recall, you work for several ranches to help with depridation. Do you see more issues during the summer or winter, or is it in the spring or fall?

That's interesting about the 5 lions per each female. Is there a study or something like that I could get a copy of and read up a little? I would like to gain some knowledge about lion population studies. If I had to bet, I'd bet that Montana lowered it's quota's based on someone's hunch instead of actual science. I'd like to know the science of it.

Scott

sheimer wrote:That's interesting about the 5 lions per each female. Is there a study or something like that I could get a copy of and read up a little?
Scott

I would definately keep that one under your lid. If the anti's start beating this here drum, we are in deep doodoo. But the point is, just quit killing females in areas with low lion densities.

Also, from my research, almost all lion management decisions are made more from emotional issues than from sound wildlife management principles.

Liontracker, I agree fully on the fact that most/all management decisions are based on emotion as opposed to science. It seems like every time that I look for some form of science to support anyone's opinion, I come up empty handed. I have asked for some science to prove running bears with hounds a bad idea and have yet to see some sound, scientific proof. The management group of the wildlife up here is well versed at eluding it.

I've never harvested a female lion and don't plan on it. I would just like to have some proof to the idea before I try to convince the people around me to quit doing it. I don't want to go to a gun fight packing a knife.

Scott

See more ranch issues during lambing and calving season which is usually early March, and then about mid June it heats up especailly around branding time and lions get blamed for a lot of bear kills. We seem to have the most when it is hot and meat spoils very quickly.


On horse killers or colt killers it seems that if they ever get started on horse meat they just have to have it.

Scott, I believe what you are looking for is the recruitment rate for lions in general. Here in CO they use the formula of one female will successfully raise 2 cubs to maturity, 1 male and 1 female. That sub adult female will produce at 2 yrs old, the same in her litters. So the recruitment rate is one male and one female every other year, per female in the population. It gets real dicey from there. You can sit down with a calculator and figure out the theoretical increase in a lion population and then deduct an "educated guess", about dispersal distances of these new female recruitments, and natural mortality combined with harvest stats, to get an idea of the population growth per year. The biggest problem though is no Game & Fish Agency in North America knows how many lions are in their state and this is where the anti's base there law suits from. Wouldn't it be nice if the Gov't biologists thought enough of houndsmen to consult them on the lion population in their area? Instead they just keep funding 2-10 million dollar studies and keep coming up with the same info. Maybe it's because they use the same guys for every study and these guys are very touchy feely and think Mmountain Lions should not be hunted in the first place.

We dont get much migration here, not enough winter. The game in the winter just falls off the tops of the high mountains down a little lower which is a movement of just a couple of miles. I think in areas where there is a big game movements between winter and summer ranges migration the lion still use all the country but since game is more dispersed they follow the same patterns. Summer ranges or territories are bigger than when the game is concentrated in the winter. But you can bet if all the game leaves an area and there is little to nothing for a lion to eat they will leave as well.

I think Mikes ex. is a little on the extreme side. Its definitly a senario that could and probably has happened but I feel its rare.

You are correct in saying that the if a female is killed and her offspring is still using the same area they will fill her niche. But they have to be old enough to be fending for themselves so your looking a 1-2 yr old offspring. Toms will kill kittens and young lions on occasion(been documented many times) but i feel these incidences are rare compared to the number of times lions encounter each other. i have seen where a tom has visited a female with small kittens and nobady fought or died. I have also seen where tom were with a female with 6 months old kittens and a 1-2 yr old tom and again nobody fought and nobody died. This is just IMO and my from personal observations

Mike Leonard wrote: Female lions don't dominate their territory as much as many think. It is still the tom that dominates the territories and sub territories within his realm. .

This raises another question....

How many females can a tom breed and keep tabs on within his territory? I know that there is only so many cows a bull can cover so I would assume the same holds true for felines as well.

Scott

[quote="sheimer]
How many females can a tom breed and keep tabs on within his territory? I know that there is only so many cows a bull can cover so I would assume the same holds true for felines as well.
Scott[/quote]

Excellent question. I don't know the real terminology for them, but I refer to them as Super Toms after I heard Mike L. call them that. Around here, there is one tom that has a territory of approximately 500 sq. mi. To my knowledge he runs over the top of the territories of 6 other toms and 8-10 females. He rules all, but I have only seen one dead kitten in there in 8 years. I have never seen a study on this, but I would tend to think that 10-12 females would be about all a very dominate tom with a large territory could cover. It would be great to know for sure.

I read a Paper done and I found it at U. of Wyo. and it was a Con't Study from this one of DNA links to Male Domiance and Area of Travel ..

http://www.uwyo.edu/dbmcd/abstracts/And ... cougar.pdf

But I can no longer Find that Paper !!

here in the Big Horns I can tell you that it varies what pattern they move. I have hunted them year round from top to bottom and everywhere in between. I find that they generally go where the game goes. It is funny cause I have treed more lions during elk and deer hunting season Sept-Nov than anyother time of the year. Might be because I am the only one running hounds at that time or could be everything is just all stirred up with all the people out hunting. Has anyone else noticed that?

I just got done reading and trying to skim past all the "et al"'s and finally got to the conclusion that lions are basically one population spread throughout the western US. It is not a series of sub-populations. Come to find out, toms don't really care if there is a big basin between them and a female. Shocker huh? Wonder why they're called "longwalkers"? Interesting paper though.

Scott

Cattle and elk and deer seem to cycle and come in estrus pretty close to the same time and that is the cover story.. Get it! Wink! Hell lions cyle year round and are born year round so no telling how many ladies the old man might spark. Let's see 365 days in a year and I gotta longwalk 50 miles to the next one and that takes a tom about 2 days in a long tot with a rest break and a snack so could be considerable.

Go out back and watch that nasty old alley cat tom and you will learn more about lions than you will on this forum. LOL!