The following year a mandatory check of sport hunted mountain lions was initiated. This classification restricted the hunting of the species to regulated seasons set by IDFG. Maurice Hornocker’s landmark research in the Big Creek drainage of the Frank Church River of No return Wilderness, coupled with concerns over the sustainability of the species, led to the reclassification of mountain lions in Idaho as a “Big Game Species” by the state legislature I 1972. Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s StewardshipĪlmost sixty years of systematic preemptive removals and unregulated hunting eventually resulted in noticeable declines in Idaho’s mountain lion population and its distribution in many of the most popular and accessible hunting areas. During this short 13-year period at least 1,849 mountain lions died in Idaho. Lion mortality levels of this period peaked during the 1971-72 season with 303 reported killed. At the same time the killing of lions for recreational purposes was increasing in popularity, and annual lion mortality levels in the ’60s regularly reached or exceeded those of the previous decade. In the mid-50s the bounty paid for mountain lions in Idaho dropped from $50 to $25, and subsequently the number of lions killed and turned in for the bounty dropped dramatically. Spotty record keeping during the early part of Idaho’s bounty period (1915-1939), makes it impossible to determine exactly how many lions died as a result Idaho’s numerous bounty programs, however at least 1,479 lions were turned in for the bounty during the 44-year period with 76 percent of those deaths occurring between 19. Similar to other western states, mountain lions in Idaho were considered significant threats to livestock and other human interests for most of the 20th Century, and government policy at the time was to remove that threat.īetween 19, Idaho’s mountain lions were considered a “bountied animal,” and hunters were employed cooperatively by the State, livestock associations, and the Federal Government to kill them.

What hunting area is 21 in idaho