Outdoors With Mat Taylor
Mountain lion sightings rare, but still possible

Former Soil Conservation Service employee and longtime writer Mat Taylor offers his outdoors column for Dispatch Record readers. He can be contacted at (254) 518-2262 or via e-mail at mntaylor@agristar.net.

Have you ever sighted a mountain lion in the wild? I have to admit I haven't. I have viewed several bobcats while hunting on our ranch and on ranches in West Texas. I have observed the tracks of the large cat while hunting on the NRA Whittington Ranch near Raton, N.M., and on a mule deer lease in the Trans Pecos.

On one occasion, we were sitting around the campfire at sundown on our lease in Presidio County. We could hear the shrill, high-pitched squall of a mountain lion, and the sound made the hair on the back of my neck stand out. After hunting on the ranch for 10 years, however, no one sighted a lion.

Experts with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department indicate most reports of mountain lion sightings in Texas are never verified with physical evidence, although such reports can arouse fear and cause a local publicity stir.

This spring, a TPWD biologist pulled up a photograph on his computer that someone had taken in a neighborhood north of Austin showing an animal's tail barely visible behind a cedar tree. The man who sent the photo said it was a large cat, probably a mountain lion, however a closer examination of the photo revealed it was a large feral house cat.

In another incident in a semi-rural area near Austin, a woman reported a mountain lion had chased her as she rode on a bicycle. Investigation by a game warden revealed the animal in question was not a lion but a Great Pyrenees dog the property owner kept to guard his goats.

TPWD mammalogist John Young, who keeps the state's lion sightings database, said the department receives between 400 and 1,000 reports of mountain lion sightings each year. Less than 1 percent, however, are verified by physical evidence such as tracks, scat, photographs or a carcass.

The lack of conclusive evidence indicates that true mountain lion sightings in urban and residential areas are very rare, but they are possible.

Residents have reported mountain lion sightings in each of the state's 254 counties, but researchers have recorded mountain lion mortalities in only 67 counties. Confirmed carcasses are the most accurate reflection of where mountain lions exist. One of the mountain lion mortalities confirmed was in nearby Burnet County several years ago.

The large cat's range in Texas is primarily in the west, south and central regions with a core population in and around Big Bend National Park. If someone wants to see a mountain lion in the wild, the park would be the place to go.

National Park Service data over the last 50 years shows there have been more than 2,700 sightings of lions by park visitors. Visitors report over 150 sightings annually, most of them along park roadways, although encounters along trails have occurred.

Mountain lion attacks on humans are rare. Since 1984 in Big Bend National Park, four mountain lion encounters have resulted in attacks on people.

No fatalities occurred, and the persons recovered from their injuries but the aggressive lions unfortunately had to be killed to prevent them from future attacks.

Likewise, in the last 100 years, only 98 mountain lion attacks were reported across the U.S. and Canada. Of those, only 17 were fatal.

Conversely, each year about 20 people die from injuries sustained during dog attacks, and more than 200,000 individuals receive injuries from dogs that are severe enough to require sutures.

One reason people report false mountain lion sightings may be a lack of exposure to wildlife. A rancher would never call a fox a lion, but someone who hasn't seen a fox or a mountain lion could confuse the two. This actually happened to a recent caller to TPWD who mistook a fox perched on her privacy fence for a mountain lion.

The best way to determine what a mountain lion looks like is to visit a zoo and compare the animal's size to other mammals.

For more information about mountain lions, including tips for living in lion country and what to do if you encounter the large cat, visit the TPWD Web site at www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/species/mlion and see the links to brochures "Mountain Lions of Texas" and "Field Guide to the Mountain Lions of Texas."