TPWD seeks input on mountain lions in Texas
By Jessica Domel
Multimedia Reporter

Texas farmers, ranchers and landowners may continue to use traps and other approved hunting techniques to protect their livestock from mountain lions.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) recently denied a petition by Texans for Mountain Lions that asked for bag limits, mandatory harvest reporting, required 36-hour trap checks and additional research on the elusive wildcats.

“Agency staff have reviewed the petition and recommended a denial of the specific regulatory actions to allow time for adequate stakeholder engagement and input,” Jonah Evans, TPWD non-game and rare species program leader, told the Parks and Wildlife Commission. “There were concerns the mandated deadlines that accompany the petition would be too restrictive considering the complexity of mountain lion policy and the need to fully engage most impacted stakeholders. We recommend including affected landowners, land managers, academics, subject matter specialists and representatives of key stakeholder groups.”

Texans for Mountain Lions asked the department to conduct a statewide study to identify the abundance, status and distribution of mountain lions in Texas.

The commission did approve creation of the stakeholder working group at its Aug. 25 meeting.

The group is expected to include representatives from hunting, wildlife conservation, livestock, outdoor recreation and animal welfare organizations, along with independent biologists and other experts.

Evans noted there’s still a lot not known about mountain lions in Texas.

“There’s limited research on mountain lions in Texas, as studies on elusive animals with large territories that range across multiple private lands can be difficult and costly,” Evans said. “Also, competing priorities from more imperiled species limits the amount of available research funding.”

In 2011, a PhD project at Texas A&M University-Kingsville compared historic and modern mountain lion genetic samples.

“They found that historic samples revealed a 10-20% decline in genetic diversity for South Texas,” Evans said. “The authors state that the effective size of the southern Texas population declined greater than 50%, whereas the size of the western Texas population remained large and stable over time.”

The findings suggest the South Texas population of mountain lions is relatively isolated with little inflow of mountain lions from other areas. So, they lack in genetic diversity.

“Genetic data indicates there is some reason to be concerned about the South Texas population,” he said. “Low genetic diversity suggests a declining population with little immigration from other areas.”

A study from the Borderlands Research Institute in 2012 revealed South Texas averaged 1.1 mountain lions per 100,000 acres. West Texas averaged 1.7 per 100,000 acres.

“The Trans-Pecos population appears to be persisting with harvest rates varying by landowner,” Evans said. “While research in Big Bend Ranch State Park and the Davis Mountains reports heavy harvest and low annual rates of survival, the continued persistence of these populations suggests they are supported by immigration from neighboring source populations.”

In Texas, mountain lions were labeled a non-game species by the legislature, meaning there is no closed season, bag limit or possession limit.

They can be hunted at any time by any lawful means or methods.

Texas Farm Bureau supports classifying the mountain lion as a predator rather than a game animal.

Great another misstep brought on by BS documentaries

Can you explain?

I saw that too and wasnt exactly sure how I felt about it.

Is there a report or estimate on how many lions are killed in Texas a year?

They are leaving out a whole lot of the state.

My bet is there are more counties in Texas with mountain lions than without.

Yelp apex predator management on Private land is and should always be the LO decision. Period. You want a quota on Federal or state land cool, it’s managed differently with different management objectives and premise. If one disagrees then they can move to a state that wasn’t deeded pre state hood and has large swathes of Public land. Reducing LO predator management ability is trifling at best. Especially in state that is so heavily deeded.

Essentially by inactiving a quota you only give large ranches any kind of management tool. Most effective cat management is hounds. Most cats killed in transpecos and STX are trapped or hounds.

I agree with your point on land owner discretion, however IMO that is conditional on the managing body (be it state or private landowners) having a firm understanding of the population dynamics and the needs of the species being managed. I think that is independent of species, predator or game animal. With mountain lions, that data doesn't exist as they travel over too much ground for landowners or even collectives to effectively collect and understand the data and the TPWD is quoted in the article as saying they are not going to get that data. Which means the species will continue to be an unregulated non game animal which could have some negative consequences.

My issue with this is that there is no incentive for the average landowner to keep, let alone manage, apex predator populations on their land. So without an incentive and without regulation there is nothing stopping landowners in a state with little federal/state grounds from eliminating mountain lions from the landscape completely which would be a tragedy in my mind. Yes, that hasn't happened, but it doesn't appear we have the data/resources to determine any idea of when or if that could happen and that is concerning for me.

Probably plenty of things I don't understand, but keeping these cats a part of the landscape is important.

This will give you a little more insight on what is going on:

https://www.lonestaroutdoorshow.com...dots-exposing-texans-for-mountain-lions/

For same reason you can get concrete population data is same reason you can’t kill them out. IMO.

Probably fair

TPWD always said that there weren't any in places I've
hunted, but I've seen several along with the neighbors and
saw several lion kills and know of some definite stock
kills. Tracks in the sand, scat piles, etc.

Shoot all you can see if you want to
Let em walk if you don't want to

Never seen one. However, about 25 years ago I found a freshly killed calf on my place South of Bowie. I don’t live there. It had been partially eaten and partially covered by brush. No decent tracks that would clearly identify it. I called the GW and he called a county Wildlife guy. They came out and agreed that it had been a big cat.

They said that there had been a Female with cubs spotted several times in the hills around Amon Carter Lake.

Many years ago (early 1980's) I took a lot of range and wildlife management classes at Texas Tech. One of the most interesting and informative things I was exposed to was some really in-depth studies on mountain lions. On multiple occasions, they brought in a group of people that were said to be the leading experts on mountain lions. This group had been studying all things mountain lion for over 20 years. We were presented with huge amounts of documentation of their studies and they spent weeks at a time sharing their findings with us. They had done extensive amounts of tracking mountain lions range and habits with use of implanted tracking devices. Although a lot of their time was spent in far west Texas, they also did extensive studies (with the tracking devices) throughout the whole state. They could then see how large a given mountain lions range was in one part of the state vs another. One of the tidbits of information that always stuck in my head was that they had documented (verified) mountain lions in every single county in the State of Texas. I ended up with several file boxes full of the documentation / results of their studies (I asked for due to interest). One of these days I'll have to find those boxes and review the studies....I remember a lot of the findings surprised me.

I only shoot the black ones.

Back in the late 90s, when everyone I knew said there were no mountain lions in East Texas, we had a full grown cow that had it’s tail bitten off with very clear, deep claw marks on its hip from a cat. It was bitten off right at the base of the tail. Now that I’m older, i realize it’s probably not normal for a cat to attack large cow with calves in the same herd. We did lose a few calves around this time too.

Then in the early 2000s I saw one hog hunting one night about 6 miles from the place the cow was attacked.

In the early 2000s I saw one in a client's back yard near the intersection of Preston Rd and Westgrove. I had pictures for a long time and a game warden came out and verified the sighting. It was not a bobbed cat, I see those nearly daily and know the difference.

Uvalde county.




Between 2016 and 2019 we caught this cat on game cam.

Have not seen this guy lately!

ya!

GWB

I have spent much of my life in the outdoors - southern and central Oklahoma, western Colorado, west and central Texas - and have yet to see a cougar in the wild. I hear lots of stories, and know they are present, but the fact that I have never seen one kind of surprises me. And who knows, maybe they've watched me walk by, even though I was never aware of them. Will add, like most here, I have game cameras out and have never gotten a photo of one either.

With that said, I still think about them when walking to the blind at Oh Dark Thirty...

My aunt and uncle have them in Fort Bend County. I wonder if there is a connection between their expansion and hog expansion. They have a lot more prey now than they did before the hog explosion. There are a lot more piglets than fawns.

I have seen 4 in my lifetime. Two while hunting with Coonhounds along the Brazos and Nolan river basins in the 70's, once while pig hunting at night just outside Coleman in 2014, and once while driving past the McDavid ranch off FM730 between Azle and Weatherford in the 1990's. They are everywhere and they like Wolves are still around. The parks and wildlife department has for years denied the existence of Wolves along the Trinity river basin even though they have been there all along. During the 70's and by the 90's wolf hunting pretty much stopped completely everywhere besides counties along the Red River basin and far southwest Texas. Wolves are not prevalent, could be transplants from Oklahoma, but they are still around!

Agreed!

A few years back there was one that was coming into the subdivision in Cibolo and taking cats & dogs out of back yards.
A few years before that, one was spotted on FM1518 about 1/2 mile south of FM78 by a motorist.
Both documented by TP&W folks

about 7 years ago a big female was shot and killed by a hunter on the farm next to my grandparents old farm that borders IH10 in far eastern Bexar County.,
That female had 2 half grown kittens and within 6 months 2 were spotted about 6 miles as the crow flies further south about a mile from my place.

I agree they are in most counties of the state with obviously larger populations in the ones with less folks living in them.