Local lion hunters not happy with number of outfitted hunters

The lion was in front of us then gone.

In the fraction of a second, the mountain lion had appeared from a thicket and strode across the road, its long, thick tail hovering behind it only inches above the dirt. Including its tail, the animal seemed nearly 10 feet long, stretching from one side of the road to the other.

And then it was gone, disappearing into the thick forest near Tally Lake.

For most people who travel the woods and forests of Montana, a mountain lion sighting is a rare thing. Cougars are a stealthy animal, shy of humans and a silent predator.

To capture a glimpse of a cougar requires well-trained hounds, and for budget-strapped wildlife managers, these hounds and their handlers are the eyes and ears on Montana's cougar populations.

"These people keep track of what females are where, and what kittens they have," Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks wildlife manager Jim Williams said. "They are quite an asset to the agency."

As the 2004 lion hunting season comes to a close, changes are afoot. A system that has been in place for three years now seems to favor nonresident hunters guided by outfitters.

Mountain lion hunting is controlled by quotas; when a quota for a particular hunting district is met, the dogs and their handlers are called off. But in 2000, quotas in some hunting districts went far beyond their established limits, sometimes doubling the amount of lions that wildlife managers had intended to be killed. By the time wildlife managers could get the word out that the quotas had been met, more hunters - mainly nonresidents - had entered the woods unknowingly and killed more cats.

"We were taking too many lions, sometimes going 100 percent over the quota, because of the sheer number of houndsmen coming from out of state," Williams said.

An outcry from local houndsmen and wildlife managers resulted. Changes were needed, so managers and local houndsmen - the people on the ground every day of the year - went to work to find a better way to manage mountain lion hunting in Northwest Montana.

With the help of legislators Roger Somerville and Paul Clark, House Bill 142 was introduced to the 2001 Legislature and passed. The new law limited nonresident hunters to taking only 10 percent of the established lion quotas, in effect eliminating the "race and chase" atmosphere that dominated the lion-hunting scene, Williams said. Under the new law, the only other way for a nonresident person to chase or kill a mountain lion is to hire an outfitter.

Now some lion hunters are seeing problems with this situation.

Because the new law didn't limit how many nonresident hunters could be guided by outfitters, these hunters are now taking a larger percentage of the mountain lions killed in Northwest Montana, according to Williams.

About 30 percent of last year's overall lion harvest in Northwest Montana was taken by nonresident outfitted hunters. That's up from 20 percent the year before.

As of last week, 133 lions had been killed in 17 mountain lion hunting districts in Northwest Montana, with only a few districts left open.

The quotas were exceeded in only one district this year. In hunting district 130 in the Swan Valley, the quota was exceeded by three lions. This is a popular lion area, and is "heavily outfitted," Williams said. A total of 45 percent of the cats harvested in that district were taken by nonresident outfitted hunters.

SO THIS is where the issue boils down: Whose lions are they? Local houndsmen or nonresident outfitted hunters?

This winter, wildlife managers, outfitters and houndsmen will begin to lay out their concerns and recommendations for next year's quotas, and to see "who got what share of the pie" this year, Williams said. They will take their recommendations to the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks commission in April.

If houndsmen, wildlife managers and outfitters can't agree on a new quota system, the next step would be the issuance of limited-entry permits, the same way moose, sheep and goat permits are allocated. In that system only 10 percent of the total permits go to nonresidents. "Outfitters don't want that," Williams said.

This situation puts wildlife managers in a precarious situation; they rely on local houndsmen to be a vital tool in the way they manage mountain lions, while outfitters are asking for their share of the take.

"We manage wildlife under the public-trust doctrine, but we want to protect the houndsmen as part of the process," Williams said. "Those public houndsmen are our only tool" in monitoring populations.

Williams says the hunting of lions helps keep the animals' populations in control and keeps the lions from entering urban areas, Williams said.

"Without the hunt, we'd be in trouble," Williams said. "We have a lot of people who live and work and play in the woods, and (without lion control) you begin to have a lot of problems. Other states are outlawing the hunt for social reasons, not biological. It's a social issue in other states that's misrepresented to the public."

In some Western states, lion hunting has been outlawed, mainly because houndsmen and lion hunting don't have the deep, social roots they have in Montana, Williams said.

Williams also is concerned that what happened in Arizona could happen in Montana. There, outfitters sued the state and won on the premise that the state unfairly limited nonresident harvest of big game animals.

"The biological issue of mountain lions in Northwest Montana was solved by limiting nonresidents," Williams said. "If that creeps up here it could be a problem."

Outfitters, says Williams, have an advantage over local houndsmen. While the local houndsmen typically hunt only on weekends, outfitters are able to go out any day of the week. Fresh snow is the key to finding fresh lion tracks.

Under the regulations, "it's a level playing field," Williams said, "but it's a question of who can get to the cats first.

"It would seem simple on the surface, but there are many complex social and biological layers to the issue."

Last year Terry Zink, of the Northwest Montana Houndsmen Association, treed over 30 mountain lions with his dogs. This year that figure dropped to 14.

Although he has friends who are outfitters, Zink said he's going to take the stand that nonresident harvest must be changed. "We're going to get some flak over it, but it needs to be lowered," he said.

Zink wants to see the quotas lowered for next year. The lion populations seem to dropping, although their prey base, white-tailed deer, is growing. Zink said lion populations are still recovering from the winter of 1996, which took a huge toll on deer populations in Northwest Montana.

Zink said he'll also recommend that a female subquota be put in place. Currently there is none.

"There are too many females being taken," he said. Female and male mountain lions are distinguishable by a small difference in color near the animals' rump.

As for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, "We're pretty satisfied from a biological standpoint," Williams said. "But from an allocation issue, it's going to be interesting."

While not as popular as big-game hunting, mountain lion hunting is growing in Northwest Montana.

There are roughly 100 members of the Northwest Montana Houndsmen Association, and Zink said the number of hunters is "growing to beat the band. There are more people every day getting into it."

Part of the new law that governs lion hunting also established a chase-only season Dec. 1 to April 14, during which houndsmen could work their dogs on lions, but not kill them. Now, says Williams, more people participate in the chase-only season than the harvest season.

The houndsmen club offers a yearly field trial and tutors its new members on the nuances of hound training.

Zink defends lion hunting as a useful biological tool, and a tradition deeply rooted in his Montana heritage. He said the case of an Evergreen man using domestic housecats to train his dogs and allow the cats to be killed does not represent most lion hunters. "That's not the way you have to train your dogs," Zink said. Zink uses old cougar hides to help his bluetick hounds develop their scent-tracking abilities.

For Zink, the matter of lion hunting comes down to his love of dogs and preserving a way of life.

"I live and die for my hounds," Zink said. "Beside my family, they're my favorite thing in life.

"We're all pretty happy with what we have. To have the right to do this is something all of us should be proud of."