Proceedings of the Ninth Mountain Lion Workshop - Carnivore ...

nominal data, yes/no scores as dichotomous data, and ranked scores as ordinal data. The
SurveyMonkey tool allowed agencies to complete the survey in one visit or in multiple
revisits, saving their responses to date.
For comparison purposes, we report some of the responses by region (northwest =
Alberta, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming; southwest = Arizona,
California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas, Utah). We also compared results by
season; we identified them as spring (March-May), summer (June-August), fall
(September-November), and winter (December-February).
Currently, Mexico does not have an agency or specific entity dedicated to cougar
management (John Laundré, personal communication). Therefore, with the assistance of
Mr. Laundré, we surveyed researchers in various portions of that country and used their
input for representation of Mexico. Ultimately, we felt the responses from Mexico were
too localized and, because questions were geared towards managers, not as representative
as other jurisdictions. Given this disparity, we discussed results obtained from Mexico
where applicable but censored them from agency comparisons and group results.
Results
Cougar Management Plans
We received completed surveys from 14 States, 1 Province, and 5 researchers in Mexico.
Of the 15 responding agencies, 11 (73%) had established cougar management plans and 4
did not (27%; this includes Florida which operates only under the federal endangered
policy) (Table 1). Agencies utilized a variety of resources when developing cougar
management plans including harvest statistics of cougars and ungulates, field research,
literature, and input from biologists and other wildlife professionals (Fig. 1). In most
cases, biologists (91%) were primarily responsible for writing cougar management plans,
but in several jurisdictions, it was a partnership with managers (64%); only Nevada
mentioned that their Game Commission and County Commission Boards helped write
management plans. To solicit comments during management plan development, agencies
conducted public meetings (91%), provided requested drafts (82%), and made plans
available online (46%). Once a plan was developed, agencies sought input from a varied
audience (Fig. 2). Agencies cited many factors that influenced change to their cougar
management plans (Table 1); 100% of agencies with a management plan said social
factors influenced change; followed by updated scientific information (91%), political
factors/legislation (91%); changes in harvest structure of cougar (73%), and ungulates
(73%). Of the 11 jurisdictions that had cougar management plans, 4 updated their plan
every 7-9 years (36%), 3 updated their plan every 10+ years (27%), 3 updated their plan
every 4-6 years (27%), and 1 updated their plan every 1-3 years (9%) (Table 1). Mexico
does not currently have a cougar management plan in place.
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