A lot of the harvest is driven by how much snow falls. Arizona is fairly unique, in that places get good snows above the Mogollon Rim, which cuts the state from the southeast to the northwest. “Above the rim you get snow, but below the rim, you get little or none,” said Zornes. “Those small detached mountain ranges in the southeastern part of the state are very good lion country.”

IDAHO
“No doubt that Idaho has lots of mountain lions,” said Ed Mitchell, public information officer for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. “I can’t give you exact numbers; they are uncountable in real terms.”

They live in our mountains, in the southern deserts, and particularly in the chain of mountains that runs east-west along the Idaho, Nevada and Utah border, Mitchell said.

“That’s cat heaven down there. There is a season, but it is a very long one. They are hunted and trapped in Idaho, mostly with dogs. We allow a limited number of non-resident houndsmen to hunt in Idaho. The only way you’re ever going to see a cat reliably is with hounds.”

COLORADO
In Colorado, the state has implemented a harvest-limit system.

“Our objective is usually smaller than the number of permits, because we know that not all hunters will be successful,” said biologist Jerry Atker of the Colorado Division of Wildlife.

The annual total of 557 is divided into various game management units. The season runs from mid-November through March 31. Slightly fewer permits are expected to be available.

Atker notes that Colorado has no restrictions on out-of-state houndsmen. “They do have to make sure their dogs have all their shots. A number of houndsmen from Minnesota and Wisconsin like to bring their dogs to Colorado to hunt cougar. We also have a lot of good houndsmen and guides in Colorado whom out-of-state hunters can book.”

Colorado is trying to encourage hunters to check the state’s Web site for information on how to tell the sex of a treed lion. Starting in the fall 2006 portion of the season, there was a requirement for hunters to take an on-line hunter education class on this, Atker said. In the future, this test is expected to be mandatory.

MONTANA
In 1998, Montana hunters took 776 lions, said research biologist Rich DeSimone of Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. “We just didn’t know what our population really was, and we continued to increase quotas until the numbers declined,” he said.

Managers tried to reduce lion numbers, but didn’t seem to be seeing results. So they kept increasing the quota year after year. At the same time, they had a huge deer die-off.

“We discovered we had overshot our intended mark,” said DeSimone. Every year since 1998, they’ve been reducing the quota. Now, there are about 330 permits available.

DeSimone noted that the state recently passed a bunch of new regulations. “We have a supply-and- demand problem and we are changing.”

In northwest Montana, where the majority of permits are distributed, the number of non-resident permits was reduced to 10 percent of the total. In Southwest Montana, they put non-resident hunting on a permit-only basis.