The North Dakota Game Dept in conjunction with South Dakota State is instituting a 3 year Cougar Study in the Badlands section of the region...........North Dakota biologist Stephanie Tucker feels that the population is at least stable and perhaps on the upswing(no actual statistics released by her dept yet).............Despite no hard statistics, the quota for hunting Lions is increasing to 14 from the current 10 in the Badlands with a 7 month Sept-March span for hunters to fulfill this goal................Why have a season yet at all??? At 10 or 14 animals as target with what I am guessing is 25 to 30% of the 50 or so total Lion population, it seems premature to go out killing them.........Ms. Stephanie, is someone pressuring you at the Govenor's office to carry out such a plan??????

Game and Fish to launch new study on mountain lions

By BRIAN GEHRING

The Game and Fish Department together with South Dakota State University is beginning a three-year study on mountain lions in the Badlands.

"We have a great need for biological data about mountain lions in North Dakota," said Stephanie Tucker, furbearer biologist for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department."A hunting season is one of the most effective to get that information," she said.

This spring the Game and Fish Department had hoped to add to that data base by capturing four more lions and fitting them with radio collars.

In 2006 one male mountain lion, known as M-12, was captured and collared.
Tucker said at the time that lion was 1½ years old and until last June they were able to track its movements.But the collar stopped working and until this spring in May, Tucker said they weren't sure of its status. That is until they were able to catch an image it M-12 on a trail camera. "He's still out there kicking," she said.

Tucker said the Game and Fish Department hired a trapper to set up baited traps in an effort to collar four more lions but weather conditions and the late spring hampered those plans.With the late snow and wet conditions getting out in the Badlands to Zone 1 for the hunting season was difficult.
And with another tough winter there was a lot of winter kill in the Badlands so getting lions to come into the baited traps didn't pan out.

Tucker said through the data collected so far through the hunting seasons biologists are getting a better handle on a population model of mountain lions in the Badlands. Still, not to the point where Tucker said she is comfortable throwing out an estimated population. "The population is stable to increasing," she said. "We are seeing that."

Over the next three years the data base of information should grow.Tucker said North Dakota will combine efforts with South Dakota State University on a "full-blown" study.The goal is capture and collar more lions with the help of SDSU researchers led by Jonathan Jenks.Tucker said Jenks has been studying the mountain lion population in the Black Hills for about a decade and the study will allow for a graduate student position to work the study in the Badlands."Twenty to 30 (lions) would be great, but that's probably optimistic," Tucker said. "Ten would be nice."

The changes in the mountain lion season are a reflection of a growing population in the Badlands.
Last year's quota of 10 lions in Zone 1, the Badlands area, has been increased to 14.The season opener is the same as it was last year, opening Sept. 2, the same day as the deer archery season.The early season will close Nov. 20, the same day as the close of the deer gun season or when the early-season quota of 10 mountain lions is filled.Tucker said the four remaining lions in the quota will be reserved for the second half of the season which opens Nov. 21 and runs through March 31.

The split season will allow hunters who like to work with dogs an opportunity to harvest a cat.
The late season is not a "dogs only" season, others can still harvest lions, and if the quota of 10 lions is not filled in the early season, the difference will not be carried over into the late season.

As in the past, there is no quota in Zone 2 which encompasses the remainer of the state.
With the flooding this spring and summer, Tucker said she has not received reports of mountain lions in areas like the Missouri River corridor.She said the animals that are reported outside of the Badlands area are what are referred to as "dispersers," or excess lions in the population.Those animals get pushed out and normally keep moving through the state.Outside of the Badlands, Tucker said the habitat in mostly unsuitable for mountain lions to settle down and establish a breeding population.
So as a far as the M-12 lion, Tucker said he would be about 6½ years old going into this fall, old by mountain lion standards in the wild.

And the fact he has not been harvested may or may not be significant, she said.
It could be M-12 has proven to be the top of the line predator in Zone 1 — king of the Bandlands, if you will.Or it could be he is simply more wary because he has been captured and handled by humans.
It's one of things Tucker and other biologists are hoping to learn over the course of the next three years during the study."He could be the exception, rather than the rule," Tucker said.