Oldtimer - Keep a lookout for more cats arriving in your area.
Biologists plan to track more big cats in the Black Hills and on the prairies
By Kevin Woster, Journal Staff Writer
State biologists have fitted 34 Black Hills mountain lions with radio-transmitter collars in an expanded research study on big cats that began last fall after South Dakota's first lion-hunting season.
And this week, the state Game, Fish & Parks Department lion-research team traveled outside the Hills to help the Oglala Sioux Tribe start its own field research project on lions in and near Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
The two research studies - one small, the other extensive - show the increasing interest in the mountain lion, a once-rare creature in South Dakota that apparently has experienced dramatic population growth in recent years.
Although most lions are in the Black Hills, the GF&P team and officers for the Oglala Sioux Tribe on Tuesday captured and released an adult male lion that had been seen in that area. They fitted the cat with a radio collar, which starts field research for lions by the tribe.
"We were north of Martin a couple of miles and ended up treeing a 120-pound, 3-year-old male," John Kanta, a big-game biologist for GF&P in Rapid City, said Wednesday. "The lion was in excellent shape, real healthy. The question now is, where did it come from and where will it go."
GF&P has signed an agreement with the Oglala Sioux Tribe to assist in capturing lions for the tribe's research study. GF&P regional supervisor Mike Kintigh said tribal wildlife officers have their own radio collars and other gear but requested help in treeing and tranquilizing the lions to be fitted.
The lion-research team, including GF&P trapper Jack Alexander and his pack of lion hounds, drove to the scene near Martin to help with the capture, Kintigh said.
"We basically went down to help get the lion treed, oversee the administration of the drugs and monitor the cat while it's sedated," Kintigh said. "Then, they're going to monitor the collared cat and collect the data."
As Oglala officials begin their own field research, GF&P is expanding their existing lion study in the Black Hills as the agency's biological staff develops a recommendation for a lion-hunting season this fall. State biologists will present their season recommendation to the GF&P Commission in April, which will lead to a public hearing on the proposal and eventually a final vote by the commission.
Kanta said the staff hadn't yet decided on its proposal, which the commission could accept, amend or reject entirely.
"It'll all be in the hands of the commission," he said.
The commission last summer set the state's historic first lion-hunting season to run from Oct. 1 through Dec. 15 in the Black Hills. But the season also was to end if 25 lions or five breeding-age females were killed. A hunter killed that fifth adult female - the 13th lion of the season - three weeks after opening day, ending the Black Hills hunt.
The commission also set a separate lion season for landowners living outside the Hills. One landowner east of the Missouri River killed a lion in that season, but biologists believe the cat was a domesticated lion that escaped.
Critics of the lion season argued that GF&P didn't have enough research data to justify the hunting season. GF&P officials disputed that but also decided after the season to expand the number of lions fitted with radio collars.
The GF&P field team has collared 34 lions and is working to get more, Kanta said.
"We're going to keep at it as long as we can through the spring and summer, to collar as many as we can," he said. "We've got 34 collars out there, but only 28 of those cats are still in the Black Hills. The other six have traveled outside the hills."
Last year, biologists estimated that about 150 mountain lions were living in the Black Hills, with a few scattered in rough country elsewhere in the state, mostly west of the Missouri River.
Kanta said the lion captured Tuesday near Martin apparently had been living in a rough, wooded draw that ran for several miles.
"There's not a great expanse of good habitat for a lion down there, but this one was in a nice wooded draw with quite a few pine trees," Kanta said. "He'd obviously been in that draw for some time. We found a porcupine he'd killed and stashed. It took the dogs a little while to sort out all the tracks."
Contact Kevin Woster at 394-8413 or
[email protected].
February 23, 2006
http://rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2006/02/23/news/local/news01.txt
