Proceedings of the Seventh Mountain Lion Workshop

COLORADO MOUNTAIN LION STATUS REPORT
JERRY A. APKER, Colorado Division of Wildlife, 0722 South Road 1 East, Monte Vista, CO
81144, USA, email: jerry.apker@state.co.us
MOUNTAIN LION CLASSIFICATION
Mountain lion (Puma concolor) received
no legal protection and were classified as a
predator in Colorado from 1881 until 1965.
During this time take of puma at any time,
any place was encouraged by bounties and
other laws. The first bounty was enacted in
1881 at $10, in 1925 laws instructed game
wardens to destroy predatory animals by
trapping, poisoning, or hunting, and in 1929
the bounty was increased to $50. For
comparison the 1929 bounty, if offered in
2003 dollars, would be $540. The bounty
was abolished in 1965, but some provisions
for landowner take of a depredating puma
remains in Colorado laws to this day. In
1965, puma were reclassified as big game.
Each Data Analysis Unit (DAU) within
the State has a management plan developed
with objectives for hunter harvest, game
damage, and human-puma conflicts.
Objectives are stated as the maximum level
on a three-year running average.
Implementation of DAU plans began in
2001. Recent interest in annual puma kill
revealed conflicting direction depending
upon which objectives managers weighed
most heavily. These conflicts pointed out a
shortfall within the plans in that they do not
state a specific strategic goal for the DAU.
Currently this must be inferred in the text of
the plan. Some DAUs are managed to
suppress puma populations while others are
managed to maintain stable populations –
recognizing the inherent difficulty in
determining population changes. Within the
next year all management plans will be
required to develop a strategic goal. We
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Proceedings of the Seventh Mountain Lion Workshop
consider this an essential step for informing
management decisions within a DAU about
season structure and annual license
allocation.
In 1996 the Colorado Department of
Agriculture (CDA) was granted “exclusive
jurisdiction over the control of depredating
animals that pose a threat to an agricultural
product or resource”. Thus, CDA has
exclusive authority to determine the
disposition of an individual puma if it is
depredating on livestock, while the Colorado
Division of Wildlife (CDOW) retains
authority to manage puma populations and
all forms of recreational or scientific use.
DISTRIBUTION, ABUNDANCE AND
MONITORING
The state is divided into 21 DAUs for
the purposes of puma management (Figure
1). DAUs are assemblages of Game
Management Units (GMUs) within which
Figure 1. Data analysis Units and relative
abundance of puma within each DAU in
Colorado.