BigGameHoundsmen.com

If you like to hunt lions, here are 2 good reasons not to shoot females.

I found these guys while cold trailing on a single female track last year. I later found the female track going down river, it looked like she was hunting. I hope you all have a good fall and winter.

Dan

Killing one female can kill 2,3,even 4 cats. If your local population is healthy I dont mind if people take a few female's out but with the wolves moving in I would have a hard time letting anybody shoot any over my dogs.

Here is a picture I took on Thanksgiving day 2007. Our season was open here in CO. This was a female and FOUR young kittens.

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Good subject to talk about just as lion season is getting started!
I am in total agreement for not harvesting females. I think that a
huge problem is guys just starting out don't see the long term effects
that over harvesting female cats has. When you kill a female, you kill her,
the kittens she may have hidden somewhere, and also every kitten she would raise in her life. Thats huge!!! I have not always believed this but it is true. It's important to teach young hunters better values when it comes to leaving some game out there for seed. Besides a big tom looks way better mounted than an 80lb female. Thats just my opinion. carry on.
Rigdogs

DAN

THOSE ARE SOME CUTE KITTENS DAN. JUST CATCHING THOSE TWO WOULD HAVE MADE MY DAY. MORE OFTEN THAN NOT MY DAYS END WITH AN EMPTY FUEL TANK, WALLET, RED EYES AND NO TRACKS. THATS NOT WHAT I CALL FUN. I LIKE TO RUN. TREE THEM AND FREE THEM.

The lion population has continued to fall off here in utah. No doubt about it as last years harvest numbers state wide were lower than the prior years and with outstanding snow conditions. If a guy is in it for the long haul it might be in his best intrest to be real selective as far as what falls out of the tree. As hound dawg says "the days of killing a lion as a heroic deed are over". Just the way i see things going in utah. Awesome post Dan V, thanks.

I've got one for ya. There used to be a 140 lb. female around here that raised some awesomely big offspring. The dogs and I treed her a few times and got some great pics of her. As time went by, the rich and famous bought about 1000 acres on the edge of her territory and subdivided it into 35 acre lots for 1.2 million each. After a couple of years of seeing her prowling through their "kingdom" the richies got scared and demanded the Division of Wildlife come out and destroy her in the interest of their safety. What a waste of a lion. A person could go their whole life and never see a female that big. It's a sad day when the Division of Wildlife doesn't appreciate a female like that. Funny part is, one of her daughters moved in and took up house keeping there! I hope she lives long and prospers ...

Oh Tim! you struck on a point that is hardly ever talked about, they matriarchal dominant queen.

What a shame! This is where the missing link is so many times. How much do you think your female hound contrubutes to the characteristics of the offspring? Well you will get many answers but even if you have King Kong cougar out there and he has nothing but undersized dink genes to breed on you will never get those 15" plus 200 Lb. plus monster cats. A female that has the genentics to weigh over 125 pounds is superior, and when you get one of that size look out! KING Of THE JUNGLE BABY!

I had a well meaning man invite me to his office today to show me his life sized cougar mount. It is a trophy to him and I am happy for him and he will probably never go again so this 90 Lb. female is a giant for that man. I congratulated him and as I ran my hand down the front leg and saw the faded inner spots showing immaturity I wondered what she may have become in a couple more years.

We will never know.

This is a VERY good subject right now as was mentioned ... I like how Bearclaw put it, " Tree em and Free em" That says it well!! I will put my own 2 cents in there yet and say that there is almost nothing that hurts the future of hound hunting lions than to kill a Female !!
Happy Hunting !!!!!!!!!

liontracker wrote:I've got one for ya. There used to be a 140 lb. female around here that raised some awesomely big offspring. The dogs and I treed her a few times and got some great pics of her. As time went by, the rich and famous bought about 1000 acres on the edge of her territory and subdivided it into 35 acre lots for 1.2 million each. After a couple of years of seeing her prowling through their "kingdom" the richies got scared and demanded the Division of Wildlife come out and destroy her in the interest of their safety. What a waste of a lion. A person could go their whole life and never see a female that big. It's a sad day when the Division of Wildlife doesn't appreciate a female like that. Funny part is, one of her daughters moved in and took up house keeping there! I hope she lives long and prospers ...

Are you sure. Because that is not the D.O.W.'s policy on a cat that is strolling though a neighborhood. If they killed that female I would say there was more to the story than you told or heard. If they took that lion I would bet you money that they relocated her.If they didn't relocate her I would bet you money there was alot more to that story. I have never seen any State relocate as much as I have seen Colorado do it. Not trying to pick a fight or anything cause I agree with all your points of not killing a female and Utah is the worst I have seen. It is good this discussion is up and I hope it stays up.Maybe we can show all these young hunters it is better to just take a great picture of a female and leave her to run another day and raise young ones. In my oppinion it does make you have a better dog if you run a male or a female, I believe the dogs don't know the difference or they don't care. I have trained alot of dogs in a season just running females that were in the area.
I think we as hunters put too much bling on the trophy that we kill, and not enough bling on the sport and sportsmanship, and sportsmanship means we don't kill off our sport by killing the resource.
This is a sore subject with me so I will shut up about it, But I saw Utah when we could run 2 to 3 cats a day easy to now when you can't find a trackin a week. And we have no one to blame but ourselves.

We have nothing to blame ourselves for except not being helpful to hunters just starting the sport! As a young enthusiastic houndsman years ago I too had a couple of females shot over my dogs. The excitement of the first few lions ever treed along with not ever seeing a big cat in a tree, and the adrenaline of the hunt can end with a female being taken. I guess if you have never had this happen you are a much more accomplished houndsman than I was just starting out. I kick myself every time I remember these hunts and that was in the early 1980's.

With that being said I have tried to be helpful when others ask for info on how to identify what they have in a tree. We owe it to the sport and the cats we chase to be knowledgeable about what we do.

Most of us can usually thank the "resident female" for helping us get those pups on that first track on their own, but if you can't recognize the track as a female or what she looks like in a tree,you will end up taking one that you didn't want to. Mistakes are made but let's learn and go on.

So I think if we are helpful and friendly to beginners we can enjoy and hold onto the sport we love and are probably addicted to!

Everyone, Read my post "New Info for Colorado". Theres some good info there.

Here it is in a nut shell. After two years of seeing this female eating on kills she made in their subdivision, they lost there nerve and demanded she be destroyed for their own safety. I saw her at the taxidermist shop. As far as relocating goes, in this part of the state lions are not relocated, only bears. Go figure.

That sure doesn't sound like the DOW policy and I've worked with a lot of them all over the state. Also, who has the cat at the taxidermy shop, the DOW? Can you find out who dropped off the cat? I'd like to check into this more. Something isn't right.

D.O.W. dropped her off to be mounted. They also shot 3 in town last year. When asked about lion relocation, they replied that they have a no tolerance policy with lions. Yes, some things aren't right and unless we can get rid of a couple of D.O.W. employees, it wont be.