BigGameHoundsmen.com

Got word a hunter in Montana close to Babb killed a big tom wearing a radio collar a day or so ago, looks like it is very likely one of the lions we collared in Southern Alberta about 30 miles north of where he was killed.
When we captured the tom he was 163 lbs and appeared to be a younger lion about 3 yrs.old
He stayed in the area for about 2 months then was last found on the tracking reciever very close to where the hunter took him, they will return the collar and the data will be interesting to look at to see how far he has wandered in the last 8 months since he was
captured..

Hey Brent,
Cool getting information back on all your work. How's your team doing and what dogs did you end up keeping? How many lions did you mark this last year?
Sean

Sean
"The Reaserch Team" has a couple hickups but nothing that can't be taken care of, the tech that is doing his masters broke his femur a week ago so he's in the penetly box for any captures this winter, we were going to start last week with the super snow conditions we have here , but looks like that is on hold till they figure out who will replace him to do the datring.
New tech help arrive in a few weeks, so till then I'll hunt with clients.
Sold the Cameron Male but will run him on cats till Jan.
Still have 8 in the "Hound Team" that are all good on cats so hope to get some treed in a couple days.

He didn't even ask if it was ok to break his leg. I'm sure you'll be putting up some cats. You have lynx or bobbers there?
Sean

Thats to bad they killed your lion!! Kinda hard to track something thats dead and learn how far they travel....Should be illegal to kill bear or lion with a collar lota money,time and effort are put into research

I agree with you Bplott, I would leave collared game alone. I realize that animals belong to all of us but if it has a collar on it I let it go. My hope is some of the info they get will help to get or keep some hunting for us. But I don't know that it will.

I disagree. Might have been the only lion the guy ever saw in the wild. Hunters fees contribute to some game studies. Kill information is valuable data. The collar can be reused and gives houndsmen jobs to collect new lions.
Sean

I just read a article on this very thing in AZ Fish and Game mag. They stated that taking of the collared wild life is many times the way they recapture for the study. Also many of those collars have been on there for years. Not the case here but how is the hunter to know that until he turns it in? They also stated that they mostly don't collar the bigger animals but instead average sized or young... but they may grow into big ones long after the study is over and still be lugging that collar around.

Hmmmmmm.....good points on both sides guys......
Should it be illegal to kill a collared study animal?
In this situation it is a plus.
We get a $6.000.00 GPS collar returned that will likely be placed on another lion.
This cat was outside of our study area, the last info we have on him was abour 4 months ago, and to gather the data that we require for this specific study was just to cost prohibative with the distance that was required to get to the area he was living in AND it was in the US so that sheds a whole different light on the subject with customs etc.
The hunter that shot him was very co operative with contacting us and to return the collar, we will ask him for a tooth as well to get an exact age and a weight if he took that before he skinned him..
We can learn alot from this hunter harvest, but that is not always going to be the case, how about having a lion shot 2 days after you captured it and the collar smashed!!
This is the collared lion that was killed, he was 163 lbs March 10 2010

since it was spot and stalk season for cats when the cat was taken, you wouldnt of known in was collared till is was harvested, to begin with. I assume it was taken on the Blackfoot Reservation?

It would be a problem to make more laws for us to follow. You can pass on any animal you don't want to take. Your choice. Plus, if it was illegal, the reality is many people would destroy the expensive equipment instead of return it, costing more. It gets reused so what difference does it make if you shoot it? Only one I know is a houndsman is paid to do the work of capturing it. I have never done this work, just saying.
Sean

i can see both sides to this one. it is a nice bonus to get a collar back on a cat that was lost or collar quit working though to see where that cat ended up. but if the cat stays in the same area it was collared its nice to keep getting the data off them.i have collared cats in eastern wa that got killed 200 miles away right by my house in western wa. also collared western wa cats that ended up on the east side. as far as one of the posts above about wearing a collar for years, most people are now using spacers that break after about 2 years or so. so if you collar a sub adult male for example and he grows to big for the collar it will pop off.