Mountain lion killed after bighorn death in Catalinas

Another bighorn sheep ewe has died in the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson, and one of three mountain lions deemed responsible for the death — a subadult lion — was tracked down and killed, state wildlife officials said.

“The lion was tracked directly from the kill site,” and that’s why a hunter subcontracted by the Arizona Game and Fish Department was certain the young lion was involved in the kill, said department spokesman Mark Hart.

“The estimated age of that lion was between 9 and 12 months,” Hart said of the animal that was killed on March 18, a day after the ewe’s GPS collar sent a mortality alert. “We tried to find the other two lions, but were unsuccessful.”

A Tucson attorney and environmental activist called on Game and Fish officials to “leave wild animals alone and address the real problem — get domestic sheep and other livestock off our lands” because they spread disease and destroy habitat.

LION PREDATION

A report by the Game and Fish Department, which is seeking to rebuild a bighorn herd that disappeared from the Catalinas in the 1990s, said observation of the carcass of the bighorn ewe “revealed the cause of death to be mountain lion predation. Although the sheep had been recently killed, the carcass was largely consumed, indicating that more than one lion had fed upon it.”

After the hunter tracked and killed the subadult lion, “an adult female and a second subadult mountain lion were subsequently pursued, but the pursuit was unsuccessful,” the report said. “The last mountain lion removal (in the bighorn sheep habitat of the Catalina Mountains) occurred just over two years ago, and this was the fourth lion removed as part of this bighorn sheep reintroduction effort.”

OPPOSITION VIEW

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“The Arizona Game and Fish Department is killing lions all over the state to prop up sheep populations while doing nothing about the real problems facing these animals, such as domestic sheep and other livestock spreading disease and destroying habitat,” said attorney Cyndi Tuell, an environmental activist opposed to the killing of mountain lions to benefit bighorns.

“They need to address the real problem, which is not mountain lions,” Tuell said. “And it’s long past time that the few conservation groups that condone killing mountain lions in the Catalinas change their ways and insist that no more lions are killed.”

DEPARTMENT VIEW

Asked why the Game and Fish Department seeks to kill lions that prey on bighorns, Hart said, “We want this (bighorn reintroduction) project to succeed, and we need to hold the line on more mortalities by lions.

“Not all lions take bighorn sheep, but some become quite adept at it,” he said. That’s a problem “when trying to re-establish a bighorn population. These lions can take a large number of sheep.”

PROJECT STATUS

The Game and Fish report said 43 GPS-collared bighorns are known to be alive. “There could be as many as 46 uncollared sheep in this population as well, bringing the total potential population to 89 bighorn sheep,” the report said. “Uncollared bighorn sheep include those released without collars, those from the 2013 release whose collars have dropped off, and those born in the Santa Catalina Mountains.”