128 Mountain Lions of the Black Hills
Despite the information presented to the commission, the individuals who testi-
fied and were in favor of increasing the lion harvest consistently argued that because
the lion population had increased, these lions had reduced game populations, and that
these predators were killing a substantial number of harvestable game animals. For
example, their reasoning was that if there were 150 adult lions in the Black Hills, and
each adult killed 52 deer- sized ungulates per year, then the total kill would be about
7,800 ungulates per year. Considering that the total harvest of deer in the Black Hills
was in the neighborhood of 4,000 animals, it would be rather easy to conclude that lion
kills were affecting license tag allocation. The opposition testified that their review of
the scientific lit er a ture had provided no information supporting the statement that
large predators negatively affect game populations. However, just the potential for a
negative impact directly resulting from lions was compelling to the commissioners,
who voted to increase the harvest limit in that and subsequent years. It also resulted in
new research proj ects to assess the impact of lions on prey populations both through
the study of lions (Smith 2014) and through studies that documented cause- specific
mortality on elk in the Black Hills (e.g., Simpson 2015). Thus, the South Dakota De-
partment of Game, Fish and Parks realized that there was a need for information spe-
cific to the Black Hills to support current and future management of mountain lions.
When attempting to quantify the total kill by mountain lions, it becomes easy to
ignore the potential for other mortality agents to kill animals that serve as prey to pred-
ators. Other mortality agents include disease, humans (vehicle mortalities and har-
vest), accidents, malnutrition, and severe weather, to name some of the common factors
(See chapter 4). Since mountain lions scavenge carcasses, including, for example, deer
that are killed by vehicles and those that die from diseases (such as chronic wasting
disease), a certain number of prey consumed by lions would be expected to have died
from other causes and then to have been scavenged by lions during the year; and, as
presented earlier, the scavenging rate for lions in the Black Hills was significantly
Table 8.10. Responses (2002 and 2012 surveys) to the statement “I am concerned
about mountain lions killing too many game animals”
Attitude response 2002 SD residents 2012 SD residents
Strongly agree 6% 14%
Moderately agree 7% 12%
Slightly agree 12% 19%
Neutral / no opinion 24% 22%
Slightly disagree 15% 12%
Moderately disagree 16% 12%
Strongly disagree 20% 9%
Source: Gigliotti 2012.