Mountain Lion and Bear Conservation Strategies Report, AGFD, Jan ...

Table 2. Average age for harvested male and female mountain lions in Arizona, 2004–2007.
2004 2005 2006 2007
Number of males 37 66 78 101
Average age of males 3.2 3.2 2.8 3.7
Number of females 56 54 78 76
Average age of females 2.7 2.7 2.6 3.3
British Columbia's draft plan allowing pursuit-only seasons that would allow hound hunters to
chase but not kill mountain lions (Austin 2005). Washington developed a three-year pilot
program authorizing pursuit-only hunting (Beausoleil et al. 2005). Hunting with hounds was
banned in Oregon through a voter initiative, resulting in an initial drop in total mountain lion
harvest, but increased tag sales and expansion of season dates and legal hunting areas led to
higher harvest levels than prior to the ban on using hounds (Whittaker 2005). Idaho expanded
hunting seasons after 2002, allowed hound hunting in most management units, and increased
non-resident hound hunting, but statewide harvest declined between 1999 and 2004 (Nadeau
2005). Hunting with hounds is allowed in Montana during the winter season, and all license
holders may pursue and chase (pursuit only) mountain lions, even within districts where limits
have been reached. Total mountain lion harvest peaked in 1998 and declined through 2004
(DeSimone et al. 2005). Pursuit-only hunting is not authorized in Wyoming (Moody et al. 2005)
and there is no pursuit-only season in Nevada (Woolstenhulme 2005). There are no definitive
data regarding impacts of pursuit-only seasons (CMGWG 2005), but multiple chases may have
detrimental physiological effects on mountain lions (Harlow et al. 1992).
Review of Hunting Structures: Open Hunting
Open hunting, currently used to manage mountain lions in Arizona, allows harvest of unlimited
numbers of mountain lions of either sex in areas delimited only by hunter choice during a legal
hunting season (Laundré and Clark 2003, CMGWG 2005). Open hunting is a method that
historically has been used throughout the West. Other systems based on limits, metapopulation
structure, and zone management concepts are of more recent vintage, and have been proposed or
are being used in some areas of western North America. Results of several studies suggest that
intense harvest under an open hunting strategy correlate with reduced short-term survival rates or
local reductions in abundance of mountain lions (Lindzey et al. 1992, Ross and Jalkotzy 1992,
Anderson and Lindzey 2005, Lambert et al. 2006, Stoner et al. 2006, McKinney et al. in press).
However, long-term reductions in local abundance and survival are poorly understood because
they may be offset by immigrations from surrounding areas (Cunningham et al. 2001). Logan
and Sweanor (2001) noted that a positive correlation between number of tags sold and harvest
totals may indicate that a population may be harvested at a rate that would reduce resident
mountain lion abundance over time. In Arizona, although there is a positive linear correlation
between tags sold and mountain lion harvest, the relationship only explains about 12% of the
variation observed between 1971 and 2007 (Y = 199.8 + 0.001X; P = 0.04; r 2 = 0.124). Tag
sales and harvest does not suggest a strong relationship either (Figure 2).
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