http://cjonline.com/sports/outdoors/2010-07-10/young_lion_well_traveled
Topeka Capital-Journal
Young lion well-traveled
By Marc Murrell
A young male mountain lion that might have looked like this one was found in Colorado as a kitten, turned over to a rehabilitator and was later released near Estes Park. A GPS tracking collar allowed officials to track the lion. To date, the roaming lion is in New Mexico and has traveled more than 1,000 miles.
For decades, reports of mountain lions were common in Kansas. The state’s mountain lion history is mired in stories of sightings and tales from nearly every county. But until recent times there has never been any documentation or physical evidence to support these claims. Nobody really doubts mountain lions could have been present at some point, but without a photo, track or carcass, their presence could not substantiated.
Over the last few years all that has changed as the presence of three mountain lions have been confirmed. The first occurred in Barber County in 2007. A trail camera photo showed another lion in Trego County last fall. The most recent might be the most intriguing as a Colorado mountain lion ventured into the western part of the state this year and spent a considerable amount of time.
“It was here approximately the month of March,” said Matt Peek, furbearer biologist with the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks (KDWP). “It came into the state in northwest Kansas in Cheyenne County and left in southwest Kansas in Morton County.”
The lion’s life history can be documented.
It was found as a kitten near Firestone, Colo., and turned over to a rehabilitator because it was too small to survive on its own. Officials from the Colorado Division of Wildlife released the sub-adult male near Estes Park last October when it was approximately 11 months old. A GPS tracking collar was placed on the lion allowing officials to get a fix on its position every three hours. The information was downloaded monthly.
As young male mountain lions often do, it started roaming looking to establish a home range and possibly a mate. Its initial trek took it from the Rockies east where it entered Kansas.
“During its travels through the state it never got more than 12-14 miles away from the Colorado border and never really slowed down too much as it didn’t spend a lot of time in any one place for too long,” Peek said. “That pattern isn’t unusual for the age and sex of that mountain lion.”
The lion’s journey while here didn’t follow any major landscape feature. Much of the area it traveled was primarily agricultural and largely uninhabited. It moved from habitat clump to habitat clump which included old, abandoned farmsteads or tracts of CRP. One area was in essence someone’s yard: It took refuge in a shelterbelt near a Kansas landowner’s house in Morton County.
“They knew it was there,” Peek said after a visit with the lady. “They saw tracks in the driveway one morning when they were taking the kids to the bus and followed the tracks to the shelterbelt. They took pictures of the tracks and sent them to relatives in Colorado and they definitely had mountain lion tracks. They’ve had other species of wildlife show up in their yard in the past and she didn’t appear overly alarmed about this one.”
Peek and other KDWP biologists were able to go to western Kansas in mid-April and using the waypoints provided from the GPS coordinates they found evidence of the big cat’s existence and some interesting information about its diet.
“The Colorado Division of Wildlife had identified “clusters” of GPS points which showed the animal was either resting or had killed something and was eating it,” Peek said. “We found evidence of a variety of prey including raccoon, porcupine and a domestic cat. We found a deer cache but we couldn’t tell if the lion had killed the deer or it was simply a road kill or had died from some other cause. In Colorado it had eaten a couple coyotes, turkey, pheasant and some small raptors.”
There was no evidence or reports of it killing any Kansas livestock.
Upon exiting the state the wondering cat ventured back into Colorado and through the Oklahoma Panhandle and the corner of Texas. It continued west and at last check was in New Mexico. To date, it had traveled more than 1,000 miles.
“That’s what’s so interesting about this information is we actually had a track and series of dots we could connect to see where it traveled,” Peek said. “Most of the other cats that have shown up far from their initial location only have a beginning point and an ending point and we never really know what route it took to get there. We can see a definite trail with this one.”
The documented presence of this lion provides a unique look at one of the country’s most secretive predators. The KDWP is appreciative the Colorado Division of Wildlife shared this information allowing biologists to gain information that may be used to better understand this species.
With the confirmed presence of mountain lions in Kansas in the last three years, it’s normal for individuals to wonder about their safety.
“I don’t think so,” Peek said when asked if people should be overly concerned. “People live in close proximity of mountain lions throughout the west, particularly in Colorado. They take precautions but conflicts between people and mountain lions are few and far between. Their presence in Kansas is nothing to be alarmed about and a few, dispersing animals doesn’t constitute any severe threat.”