120 Mountain Lions of the Black Hills
in the Black Hills. During that time, we had a phone conversation in which he stated
that in the past he had frequently observed deer in the area surrounding his home,
including his yard, but now he had been seeing few or no deer. And he had seen a
lion pass through his yard, where deer had previously congregated. His friends, other
hunters, had told him of a hunter who reported seeing a lion in Custer State Park in
an area with multiple unconsumed elk carcasses and concluded that the one lion had
killed all of those elk (that would have been surplus killing) (Kruuk 1972; DelGuidice
1998). The most impor tant point he was trying to make to me was that lions were kill-
ing all the deer and elk in the Black Hills, and he and his friends were now unable to
harvest these species because there were fewer harvest tags available.
I listened intently to his concerns and then began responding to his points. I
explained how the elk population in the Black Hills had been reduced: because of
damage claims by local landowners, additional elk harvest tags had been issued and
additional animals taken by hunters; also, in Custer State Park, some elk likely had
chronic wasting disease (CWD), which might explain the multiple elk carcasses he
mentioned. I told him that some deer in the Black Hills also had CWD, especially in
figure 8.1. Adult as well as young mountain lions were observed by residents and
visitors to the Black Hills region, especially when the population became saturated.
Photo by Dan Thompson.