Mountain Lions: A Crucial Species for Biodiversity
Mountain lions are often known for their role as a keystone species, but they are less commonly known as an umbrella species.
Photo: Sean Hoover
While a keystone species is a species on which other species in an ecosystem largely depend, such that if it were removed the ecosystem would change drastically, an umbrella species is a species that have either large habitat needs or other requirements whose conservation results in many other species being conserved at the ecosystem or landscape level.
Mountain lions (Puma concolor) play a vital role in not only supporting the health and function of ecosystems on the whole, but also by promoting biodiversity.
Mountain lions are highly adaptable to situations and environments, and this adaptability has enabled them to survive across much of their original range in the America's, despite severe habitat loss and active threats.
While their longitudinal range has remained, their latitudinal range has shrunk by more than half. Mountain lions used to be found throughout the United States, but due to bounty hunts in the early 1900's and threats such as persecution, trophy hunting, poaching, retaliation in response to livestock depredation, kitten orphaning, poisoning and habitat loss and fragmentation, mountain lions are now only found in 15 western states, and the genetically isolated Florida panther remains in the East.
We live in a time of a sixth mass extinction event, primarily caused by human activity. Urban expansion, habitat fragmentation, excessive hunting quotas, and social intolerance are significant drivers of biodiversity decline across the planet.
MAP: Expansion of the Wildland Urban Interface from 1990 (left) to 2010 (right). Click the legend at the bottom left for details. Use the slider to compare years. Adjust zoom using the + and - button at the bottom right.
Photo: Jason Klassi
There are many reasons to protect America's lions. They play a crucial role in ecosystem health and resiliency, the are part of our heritage, and they connect us with a wilderness that many of us long for. But that's not all, as an umbrella species, by preserving enough habitat for mountain lions, a multitude of other species will benefit.
On average, a mountain lion's territory can be upwards of 100 square miles, give or take. Imagine how many species would benefit from ensuring ample habitat, coupled with an effort to mitigate habitat fragmentation, would benefit from the huge swaths of lands that might be protected by simply focusing on ensuring that sections of forests, mountains, and deserts are left untouched for these wild cats.
Photo: Denali National Park and Preserve - NPS
By protecting sufficient habitat for mountain lions, we can indirectly aid in the recovery of other species of concern like the Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis), grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis), ocelot (Leopardus pardalis), and more. Even more common species like mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), bobcats (Lynx rufus), foxes, migratory birds, and scavengers benefit from the presence of mountain lions.
Carrion left behind from mountain lions spreads nutrients through the ecosystem, ultimately strengthening entire communities, while improving the overall health and resiliency of an ecosystem. Nutrients from the remains of a lion's prey are released back into the environment, enriching soils and plant communities, eventually creating locations where animals like elk (Cervus canadensis) and deer more frequently forage.
If we want to protect both our wild landscapes and wildlife for future generations, then protecting mountain lions and their habitat is an effective way to accomplish both.
Felid species in North America (click on button in bottom left corner of map to view legend)
Photo: Sean Hoover
If mountain lions are to persist into the future in numbers healthy enough to provide the vital ecosystem services that promote biodiversity and protect our wilderness, then we need to take a hard look at how we are impacting them through hunting, urbanization, human population growth, climate change, livestock husbandry practices, and more.
Across the west, quotas are often increased annually and, in some states and hunt units, removed altogether, putting excessive pressure on the wild cats, orphaning kittens, and seldom achieving the desired management goals of reducing conflicts or boosting other big game numbers. These excessive quotas are not supported by the research either.
In California, voters passed Proposition 117 in 1990, which classified mountain lions as a specially protected mammal and permanently banned lion hunting in the state. However, mountain lions are faced with a number of threats including habitat loss and fragmentation, rodenticide poisoning, and social intolerance.
On April 16, 2020, the California Fish and Game Commission voted 5-0 to advance Southern California and Central Coast mountain lions to candidacy under the state’s Endangered Species Act in an effort to protect mountain lions from genetic isolation from roads and development.
In Idaho, a state where mountain lions are actively hunted, the Idaho Fish and Game Commission voted to remove quotas statewide on male and female lions and permitted the use of electronic calls to lure in lions. According to Idaho Fish and Game, "The changes were proposed as an effort to increase lion harvest and reduce predation on deer and elk, and reduce human conflicts and livestock depredations."
However, research has found that hunting mountain lions does not necessarily achieve either of these management goals.
Effects of Sport Hunting on Cougar Population, Community, and Landscape Ecology
Mountain lions once roamed the hills of Nebraska until the arrival of European settlers. In the late 1990's, as the wild cats slowly regained a foothold in their former habitat, Nebraska Game and Parks classified them as a game animal and established statues for hunting in 2022. There are presently breeding populations in three areas: the Pine Ridge, Niobrara River Valley, and Wildcat Hills.
Despite low population estimates, the most recent of which from 2017, ballparked the number of total mountain lions in the Pine Ridge region (a number that includes kittens), to be around 34 total individuals, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission authorized another hunt for the 2022 season .
In the face of overwhelming public objection, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources continued their trend of annually increasing quotas in the state for the 2020-21 hunting season. The hunt recommendations for this season included 31 unlimited units where there are no limits to how many lions can be killed by hunters.
Additionally, in 2020, House Bill 125 was passed which established that, "It is the policy of the state that big game animals are of great importance to the citizens of the state, the citizen's quality of life, and the long term sustainability of the herds for future generations," and "that the director shall take immediate action to reduce the number of predators within a management unit when the big game population is under the established herd size objective for that management unit."
This anti-predator legislation is, again, not supported by research and will do little to achieve desired management goals.
In Texas, it’s always open season on mountain lions. Even though human persecution has driven them locally extinct in the eastern part of the state, Texas mountain lion hunting is allowed year-round with no bag limits.
In 1996, the Washington Bear-Baiting Act (Initiative 655) was approved by 62.99% of voters. The initiative classified baiting black bears and hunting black bears, mountain lions, bobcats, and lynxes with dogs as gross misdemeanors in the State of Washington.
Ignoring Initiative 655, a sheriff in Klickitat County, WA has amassed a posse of houndsmen to kill "problem" cougars for simply existing on the landscape.
This level of social intolerance achieves little; especially as lethal removals are not an effective long-term solution for conflicts. Instead, conflict prevention measures like livestock guardian dogs and predator-proof enclosures keep both domestic animals and wildlife safe .
Photo: Mountain Lion Foundation
Science shows that hunting mountain lions achieves little in the way of the frequently touted management objectives of reducing conflict and boosting desired big game species. Researchers have found that mountain lion populations are effective at self-regulating and need no intervention from humans.
As is common in nature, predator-prey dynamics ebb and flow. Mountain lions have existed for thousands of years without human intervention and wildlife and ecosystems have thrived. It is high time that we value these natural systems as they are and reduce our impact within them, which seldom even achieves our seemingly desired objectives.
Mountain lions are no less valuable than the often sought after game species like mule deer and elk. They provide valuable ecosystem services and, without them, we would see a decline in ecosystem resiliency and biodiversity. In fact, mountain lions keep our landscapes healthy and balanced.
Our mission is to ensure that America’s lion survives and flourishes in the wild. For us. For our landscapes. For our ecosystems. For our lions.
Learn more at www.MountainLion.org
