Steve Knight

The spotting of a mountain lion is to Texas what the spotting of Bigfoot is to the Pacific Northwest.

Sure, mountain lions exist, but certainly not at the number and locations reported. There are between 400 and 1,000 mountain lion sightings reported to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department each year. However, says biologist John Young, the man in charge of the state’s lion sighting database, only about 1 percent can be verified. That is somewhere between four and 10 in a state that is almost 270,000 square miles in size.

Young said there have not been confirmed mountain lion sightings in East Texas for more than a decade.

“Prior to that we have records going back to 1983 on fatalities and we have four or five counties in East Texas where one was killed on the road or shot by somebody,” Young said.

Biologists have identified two core populations of mountain lions in Texas, one in the southwest portion of the state and the other in the Trans Pecos region. Mountain lions are also routinely found in the Hill Country.

For the past 90 years those populations appear stable if not showing a slight increase in numbers.

That information comes from research concluded two years ago using DNA from 89 lions. Data showed that while the lions studies were from Texas, bloodlines could be traced to Mexico and New Mexico. This has led biologists to believe that the populations in West Texas and South Texas don’t have a connection.

Young has done a statewide habitat assessment for mountain lions and has determined there are some spots in East Texas where they could survive.

“There are some chunks of sizeable land that is probably suitable for mountain lions, but it is fragmented. Also there are a lot of people there and mountain lions don’t like people and there are a lot of roads,” Young explained.

For that reason the biologist believes if there are any mountain lions in East Texas, they are most likely transients who have wandered into the area.

“Mountain lions are capable of traveling long distances. There was recently a report of a radio-collared mountain lion from South Dakota killed in Oklahoma and another from South Dakota in Minnesota,” Young said last week, after returning from investigating an unconfirmed sighting in Travis County north of Austin.

The two most recent kills in Texas, one by a hunter near Sweetwater and another by Texas Wildlife Services of a 7-year-old male in Kerr County, confirm the possibility of mountain lions showing up anywhere.

So with so few confirmed sightings of mountain lions, what are people seeing? Young said he doesn’t rule out that they are seeing mountain lions, but at 65 miles per hour at night or at 200 yards through a suspect pair of binoculars he added it could be a combination of things from dogs, to bobcats, wild pigs, coyotes and house cats.

“I had one man the other day who took picture from his porch of what he thought was a mountain lion. It was an orange-colored cat rolling on the ground in the dirt. I couldn’t convince him of it,” Young said.

Even Young has made the mistake of seeing what he thought was a roadkill mountain lion while traveling through Kentucky. After turning around for a second look, the embarrassed biologist quickly realized he had seen a gold-colored coyote.

As for those nonexistent black mountain lions spotted in East Texas, Young believes drivers may be spotting river otters scampering across the road.

Mountain lions are classified as nongame animals in Texas, which means they can be taken year-around by anyone with a valid hunting license. While there is no population estimate on the animals, biologists don’t believe hunting pressure has an impact on their numbers.

Also, hunters aren’t required to report shooting a mountain lion, but the department would like them to so tissue samples can be collected.

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Contact Outdoor Editor Steve Knight at 903-596-6277 or by e-mail at outdoor@tylerpaper.com

RARE APPEARANCE: Mountain lions are common in South and West Texas, and occasionally one will travel into another part of the state.
((Courtesy Photo/TPWD))