Mountain lions might have unexpected allies pushing back against the notion that the big cats kill too many deer — seasoned mountain lion hunters.
Wyoming native Doug Boykin has pursued mountain lions with hounds for decades in Wyoming, Arizona and other states.
He told Cowboy State Daily that in his experience, mountain lions are “opportunists” that frequently eat small animals such as porcupines and rabbits.
And sometimes, other predators – such as coyotes or bears – will steal a mountain lion’s deer, forcing the cat to go kill another deer, he added.
When radio-collared animals such as deer and bighorn sheep die, mountain lions are often the first to get blamed, hunting outfitter and guide Trevor Marques told Cowboy State Daily.
“The majority of the time, people think, oh, that was a mountain lion kill,” said Marques, who guides hunts in eastern Nevada for mountain lions, elk and deer through Bull Ridge Guide Service.
When Wyoming’s famous long-ranging mule deer doe, Deer 255, died in the Red Desert last summer, a mountain lion attack was listed as her cause of death.
Mountain Lions Like Small Game Too
Marques is among those who questions how many deer are killed by mountain lions, versus deer getting taken out by coyotes, or dying in some other way.
There’s no doubt that mountain lions kill deer, but just how many they kill could be up for debate.
For example, it’s widely assumed that an adult mountain lion kills about a deer per week.
Marques said that can depend on the mountain lion.
Some mountain lions are better deer hunters than others, he said. And while the best deer-hunting cats might indeed kill about a deer per week, many other mountain lions get by on whatever else they can scrounge up.
“We’ve seen them kill rabbits, porcupines, foxes, badgers and coyotes. I think they eat a lot more small game than people give them credit for,” he said.
Boykin agreed that he’s seen plenty of evidence that mountain lions can get by on small game or whatever else that they can find.
“They are opportunists. Say, they’re hunting a deer, but a javelina comes by. They’ll kill the javelina. If an elk comes by, they’ll kill the elk,” he said.
Varied Menu
Marques said that he was intrigued by the results of a recent study that followed several mountain lions in New Mexico and kept track of what they were preying on.
The results seemed to indicate that the mountain lions were killing relatively few deer. As far as large prey, they seemed to skew more toward feral horses and elk.
And the mountain lions also killed more beavers than just about anything else.
Marques said the study has its limits. It was conducted on only a few mountain lions in a specific area.
But he said it still provides a window into patterns of mountain lion behavior across the West and might help undo some long-held misconceptions about the big cats.
Other Critters Steal Mountain Lion’s Deer
Boykin noted that in instances where he’s seen particular mountain lions killing a lot of deer, it was because competitors were driving the mountain lions to it.
Mountain lions are extremely cautious about picking fights, he said.
“They can’t risk getting hurt. If they get hurt, they can’t hunt, and they’ll starve,” he said.
So, while a mountain lion might fight and kill a lone coyote, or even a lone wolf, they’ll back down from a pack of canines.
And they don’t want to tangle with bears, he added.
If a mountain lion kills a deer, scavenging birds, such as crows, might get noisy and give the location away, he said.
All that squawking might draw in a bear, or a pack of coyotes or wolves.
Faced with a fight that’s just too risky, the mountain lion will leave and then go kill another deer, he said.
Those Darned Coyotes
Marques agreed that coyotes might hurt deer numbers worse than mountain lions do.
Coyotes will gobble up deer fawns in the spring. And coyotes seem capable of taking down adult deer now and again.
Weather and other factors kill lots of deer too.
In Wyoming, the extreme winter of 2022-2023 took a terrible toll on the prized Wyoming Range mule deer herd. Thousands of adult deer died, and nearly all the fawns were wiped out.
Marques said that winter wasn’t nearly as harsh in eastern Nevada. But he worries that over-hunting and coyotes killing deer might be driving mule deer numbers down.
And while mountain lions might get more than their share of the blame, he doesn’t agree with shutting down mountain lion hunting, as was done in California.
“You still have to manage the mountain lion population,” he said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
