In early 2022, a citizen group convened virtually to develop population recommendations for mountain lions in northwest Montana.

This group, called the Northwest Lion Ecoreginal Population Objective Committee, consisted of 10 citizens representing a broad spectrum of mountain lion stakeholders from within or close to the ecoregion.

The committee worked with FWP to define a planning strategy where the objective is to manage the northwestern lion ecoregional population for population sustainability at a target level that maximizes public satisfaction related to lion hunter opportunity, lion conflict, and ungulate population trends.

The committee specifically focused on developing recommendations to the commission regarding:

• Target population trend (Increase, Decrease, Stable) 

• Degree of ecoregional population size change (% up or % down)

• Lion Management Unit (LMU) emphases (e.g., older-age class harvest, conflict reduction, aid ungulates, more opportunity, or others)

The committee was not charged with recommending season structures, license types, or specific allocation of quotas among Lion Management Units (LMUs).

The committee completed its work with a final report that was submitted to the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission.

• Northwest Lion Ecoregional Population Objective Committee Final Report 2022 (PDF)

Background

In 2019, the Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted the new Mountain Lion Monitoring and Management Strategy. This strategy outlines the scientific basis for conserving, monitoring and managing harvest of mountain lions in Montana.

An integral part of implementing this strategy is the formulation of a committee in each of the three western ecoregions, beginning with the northwest ecoregion. The northwest ecoregion committee was the first to convene.