MCLEOD — According to Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, mountain lions are thriving once again in the state, and one woman had an up-close encounter with the animal earlier this month that left her grateful she was inside her home on East Boulder Road south of Big Timber.
Eileen Ewan looked out her kitchen window one night and noticed an animal approaching her home.
“I thought, surely when it sees me, it'll turn around. But it didn't, it kept going,” Ewan said recently. "It was pretty exciting, especially since it just stood there and looked at the camera."
Looking back at her was a mountain lion. She and her husband had seen mountain lion activity before, but this experience was a first. Ewan said they're not always looking for a mountain lion, but they always know that the animal is there.
“We had one kill a deer and drag it into one of our barns,” Ewan said. "We've been trying to scare the deer away because we thought that maybe that would keep the mountain lion away, too."
According to Brian Wakeling, the game management bureau chief for Montana FWP, tracking the mountain lion population in the state is a complex task.
"Mountain lions occupy huge landscapes, they travel a lot, they have large home ranges, and so it's not at all uncommon for them, especially in places where prey populations may not be as abundant for them to cover an awful lot of land," Wakeling said. "Part of our monitoring has been to establish what we call eco-regions, which are areas of the state that are fairly similar as far as habitat quality and wildlife abundance, things that they may prey on."
Wakeling said mountain lions are most abundant in the northwest and west central part of the state.
From the Montana Field Guide:
A large cat with an elongate body, powerful limbs, small head, short face, short rounded ears, long neck and long, round, black-tipped tail.
Two color phases: buff, cinnamon, and tawny to cinnamon rufous and ferruginous, and silvery gray to bluish and slaty gray; young are buffy with dark spots, and the eyes are blue for the first few months; color of upperparts is most intense midorsally; sides of muzzle and backs of ears are black; underparts are dull whitish with buff wash across the belly; end of tail is dark brown or blackish; adult total length 171 to 274 cm in males, 150 to 233 cm in females; adult tail length 53 to 81 cm; greatest length of skull 172 to 237 mm in males, 158 to 203 mm in females.
Eyes set forward on head for sight hunting. Adult males weigh 150 to 190 lbs., females 70 to 120 lbs. Solitary, except for females accompanied by males or kittens. Females den in caves, rock crevices, brush piles, etc. with kittens and leave them there while hunting; usually hunt by stealth at night and cover unused food for later use. Males territorial, and large male home ranges may overlap smaller ones of females.
"What we've seen in Montana over the past, probably since 1998, was probably about our low point as far as our mountain lion populations based on our best available models that we have," Wakeling said. "We saw an increase in that population since that time, until probably about 2012, and probably since that time, it's probably been at a, from a statewide level, at a stable to slightly increasing level."
In 2023, an FWP commission voted to start reducing the mountain lion population.
"The direction that the commission provided in 2023 was to try to achieve a reduction in mountain lion populations and that varied in some units, you know, as low as 10% in some areas of 40%," Wakeling said. "The objective was to do that over a six-year period of time. It wasn't to, you know, cut the population in half in a year. And so, that allows us the ability to continue to monitor the population and provide alternate recommendations through the course of time."
He believes the agency has seen a reduction, but he admits it is difficult to track as the animal can travel large distances.
Wakeling also said the number of mountain lions in the state isn't what drives conflicts with humans.
"If there is an attractant that will bring an animal in, that is oftentimes the kind of thing that increases conflict," he said. "We have landscaping that's attractive to a lot of prey species. When we get those animals moving in, deer moving into Helena or Billings or wherever, a lot of times the predators will follow them in."
The National Park Service provides the following guidelines if you encounter a mountain lion:
- Do not approach a lion. Most mountain lions will try to avoid a confrontation. Give them a way to escape.
- Do not run from a lion. Running may stimulate a mountain lion's instinct to chase. Instead, stand and face the animal. Make eye contact. If you have small children with you, pick them up if possible so that they don't panic and run. Although it may be awkward, pick them up without bending over or turning away from the mountain lion.
- Do not crouch down or bend over. A human standing up is just not the right shape for a lion's prey. Conversely, a person squatting or bending over resembles a four-legged prey animal. In mountain lion country, avoid squatting, crouching or bending over, even when picking up children.
- Do all you can to appear larger. Raise your arms. Open your jacket if you are wearing one. Again, pick up small children. Throw stones, branches, or whatever you can reach without crouching or turning your back. Wave your arms slowly and speak firmly in a loud voice. The idea is to convince the mountain lion that you are not prey and that you may be a danger to it.
- Fight back if attacked. A hiker in southern California used a rock to fend off a mountain lion that was attacking his son. Others have fought back successfully with sticks, caps, jackets, garden tools and their bare hands. Since a mountain lion usually tries to bite the head or neck, try to remain standing and face the attacking animal
- Bear Spray. Carry bear spray with you while hiking. Although it is called “bear” spray, the pepper powder will work on just about any wild or domestic animal that attacks.
