40 Mountain Lions of the Black Hills
after the trapping. Such quick recovery might have occurred because, when they
were trapped, the animals were focused on the bait carcass and thus did not respond
to the snare. These lions would generally be lying sternally recumbent when ap-
proached, allowing for quick darting. After darting an animal, we retreated and
allowed it to remain calm while becoming immobilized.
On certain occasions, box or cage traps (fig. 3.10) were used to capture mountain
lions. We used the design of Ken Logan and baited the trap with deer (Bauer et al.
2005). Once a lion was captured, we immobilized it using a jab pole. When it was safe
to do so, we collected biological data, fitting the animal with a radio collar, and moved
the animal to a safe location prior to reversing the immobilizing drugs. Box traps were
generally used in areas close to housing developments, because it would be disruptive
to run hounds through these areas; in addition, the tracks of domestic pets (dogs and
figure 3.7. South Dakota Department of Game, Fish
and Parks employee Steve Griffin, climbing a tree to
lower an immobilized mountain lion for radio- collaring.
Photo by D. M. Fecske.