Lion harvested near Ekalaka traced back to Chadron, Nebraska

A pair of local men on the search for coyotes turned into a rare chance for another to harvest a mountain lion near Ekalaka back in January.

Zach Elmore and Eric Lovec were on their way to a spot where they felt they had a good chance to call in coyotes when they noticed a silhouette in a clearing near a ridge line some 500 yards away. After abruptly stopping to take a closer look with some binoculars, Elmore exclaimed to Lovec that the animal was indeed a lion.

As the two discussed what they should do, the animal walked across the ridge, eventually out of sight from where they were stopped. Both men pulled out their phones and began searching for someone in their contact list that might have a lion tag. Elmore's first call was to a friend, Gabe Carroll, as he thought Carroll had previously mentioned purchasing a lion tag for the hunting season. Carroll indeed did have a tag.

While Elmore was on the phone with Carroll the lion walked back into sight, farther down the ridge from where it was first spotted. The two discussed calling another party with dogs and potential strategies on what to do. The lion, now out of any clearing, walked behind a thicker forested area and seemingly vanished. By the end of the conversation, Carroll was on his way to the area, knowing an approximate location. He was excited.

Over the next hour and a half, Lovec and Elmore thought that they could occasionally see movement behind a tree about 50 yards from where the lion was initially spotted, but decided to stay put until Carroll arrived.

Carroll made his way to them as quickly as he could, stopping only to pick up his friend, Travis Loehding. When Loehding and Carroll arrived, Elmore and Lovec were quite convinced that the lion was still in the area since they had not seen anything leave through the clearing and thought they could occasionally see movement.

The four made a short walk to get a different visual angle of the spot the lion was last seen. To their excitement, the lion was still there. After deliberation, the decision was made to go after it, instead of waiting for someone with dogs to arrive and tree it.

Loehding and Lovec stayed on the ridge across, watching through binoculars. Carroll and Elmore walked around the ridge, using the terrain and wind to their favor. Around 40 minutes later, Carroll and Elmore had managed to get much closer to the lion, around 50 yards, and were in a good spot for a clear look and shot.

Carroll made a good shot and within seconds the hunt was over. Loehding and Lovec had been able to watch the entire thing from the same spot the four men had initially walked to and formulated their plan.

When Carroll got to his harvested animal, he noticed the lion had a tag in each ear. Though unsure what it meant, they had surmised it may have indicated the lion was, at one time, tagged in Nebraska.

After the hunt was over, the four men walked the area, searching for signs of the cat and following nearby tracks in the snow. About 40 yards from where Carroll bagged the lion they found a mule deer buck kill that the lion had been feasting on. Right next to the lion was a small coyote that had been killed. They had found why the lion returned to the area. Drag marks from where the lion had killed the mule deer to where it was found were still visible in the snow.

The men returned to Carroll's ranch where they weighed the animal. It was 162 pounds. Carroll was excited to find out what information was available on the cat since it was tagged.

The following week he heard back from Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks and was informed that the lion had been tagged in 2018 as a kitten, south of Chadron, Nebraska.

Carroll had harvested a very large cat in a very unique way. He was able to find the mule deer it had been eating on. And possibly even better, he now had information on where the animal initially came from.

On Monday, Montana FWP's Region 7 office issued the following statement regarding the harvested mountain lion:

by Wildlife Biologist Emily Mitchell

Wildlife biologists in Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks' Region 7 have long suspected that lions from surrounding states and populations sometimes find their way into southeastern Montana, but recently they got proof of just how far these animals' travel corridors can extend.

"Our neighboring states and areas – North Dakota, South Dakota, western Montana - also have lions, and we have many good travel corridors through the region, including the Yellowstone River, Missouri River and smaller waterways," wildlife biologist Emily Mitchell explained. "Because of this, biologists believe we get a fair amount of immigration from other populations, giving us new lions added into our population."

Region 7 uses data gathered from harvested lions (age, sex, harvest location) to manage its lion population.

"Over the past three seasons, we have been collecting a tissue sample from all harvested lions in the region to send in for genetic analysis," Mitchell said. "This should tell us which populations (ND, SD, western MT, etc.) the parents of our harvested lions came from, giving us more information about our lion population."

It didn't take long for these sampling efforts to produce some interesting results.

"One exciting, and rare, example of this came to us from a lion harvested near Ekalaka," Mitchell said.

The 3-year-old male lion had ear tags. Mitchell took a photo of the tag and did some investigating and figured out that the lion had come from Nebraska.

"They do a tagging effort every year, and this lion had been tagged in 2018 as a kitten, south of Chadron, Nebraska," Mitchell said. "This was a cool, rare find that confirms our assumptions."

That means that the lion traveled hundreds of miles as the crow flies to end up in southeastern Montana, helping to ensure biodiversity in this population.