HOW MANY CATS ARE IN YUR STATE?

[dustinFLA]

I live in Southwest Florida and was doin some research on the Florida panther. While knowing they were endangered and have been since 1967 I could'nt belive in when I found out that it is estamated that there are only about 80 panthers livin in the wild. I understand that the Florida Panther is not a mountain lion but they are closely related. To be able to hunt a mountain lion and other big cats in so many other places in the U.S. meens there must be alot of them and I was just wonderin how many to yur state and what are the seasons and limits if any...

[TomJr]

Well the "florida panther" can breed and produce viable off-spring with mtn lions and they look identical... That to me means they are the same. There have even been relocations of lions from Texas to keep the "florida panther" from becoming inbred. Huumm??

Thats politics for you, same animal differant state so call it something else and say its endangered.

Arizona has a healthy population.

[Dale T]

In California they claim that we have 4,000-6,000 and have since the last Montain Lion study done in 1994, I'm not sure how that works out being as we haven't been able to hunt them for over 30 years, currently they are under special protection and F&G cannot do anything to manage them, just deperdation.

[jed]

In Colorado, the DOW claims that there are 3500-6000. I understand that they are hard to estimate as counting is difficult and studies are time consuming and expensive but this has always created more questions for me than answers. I often ponder how management plans are created when we either have "X" number of cats, or almost twice that many. Or, from the other viewpoint, we have "X" number, or actually about half that many. . . .certainly challenging and I don't have those answers.

Our season here runs from late November to the end of March, a little over 4 months. Licenses are over the counter, with a mandatory check-in after harvest. All GMU's have a quota, some with considerations as to maintaining or voluntarily decreasing the take of females. When a quota is reached, that GMU is closed to lion hunting. In an average year somewhere between 300-350 lions are harvested in Colorado, usually 35-40% of the statewide average being female.