90 Mountain Lions of the Black Hills
South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks advised residents to keep pets in-
doors, to keep livestock in pens or barns, to keep domestic animal areas lighted, and
to remove vegetation close to residences; these recommendations have also been pre-
sented to residents in other states to deter lions from encountering humans and do-
mestic animals.
In response to the increased number of mountain lion reports and information col-
lected during our first studies of mountain lions in the Black Hills, the South Dakota
Department of Game, Fish and Parks had initiated a harvest, but because of the un-
certainty both in the population information collected at that time and because some
South Dakota residents were not in favor of a harvest, a low harvest limit was estab-
lished. In addition, the harvest was classed as “experimental” in that the information
collected during the first two years would be used to evaluate the effect of harvest on
this population of mountain lions. Results from the initial harvests collected via radio-
collared animals and population modeling indicated that the low harvest limit was
not affecting the population to any real extent. We suspected that the population
was responding to the low harvest just as any other species would do: increase sur-
vival as new subadult males established in the territories of harvested males and as
female subadults established in the ranges of harvested females (fig. 6.9). We did not
see other changes that would suggest that the population was reduced to any extent
relative to the dynamics of individuals inhabiting the Black Hills.
However, as stated, there were changes in feeding habits. Mountain lions seemed
to respond to the change in prey availability with the reduction in numbers of porcu-
pines and to the change in be hav ior of Black Hills residents in response to the killing
of their pets and domestic animals. At the individual level, we had seen lions that killed
deer early in our studies, but they seemed to be focused on mule deer, not white- tailed
deer, despite the high availability of white- tails and low availability of mule deer
( table 6.5). We had already documented that coyotes were preying on white- tailed deer
in the northern and central Black Hills regions (Griffin et al. 1994, 1999; DePerno
et al. 2000). At the time of those studies, we did not document any killing of white-
tailed deer by mountain lions, even though we had more than 40 deer radio- collared
in the northern Black Hills and 70 radio- collared in the central Black Hills. In the
southern Black Hills, because of the diversity of habitats that favored both white- tailed
deer and mule deer, we captured and radio- collared both species (Griffin et al. 2004).
We saw differential mortality on the two prey species, with most mortality on mule
deer attributed to mountain lions, whereas most mortality on white- tailed deer was
attributed to coyotes.
When considering that lions likely colonized the southern Black Hills initially and
that these lions had dispersed to the Black Hills from the west, where the primary
prey of most, if not all, lion populations at the time was mule deer, it seemed logical
that these first inhabitants of the Black Hills would be skilled at killing mule deer
and that porcupines were an easy prey no matter where they occurred. White- tailed