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Colorado Parks and Wildlife has been watching our mountain lion population

We now know more about Colorado's mountain lion population than we ever have before.
Credit: Colorado Parks and Wildlife

For two decades, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) workers have been putting together research about our mountain lion population. This kind of extensive research on the mountain lion population and how they navigate the landscape is the first of its kind.

Back in the early 2000s, new GPS satellite collars were used on 102 mountain lions along the Front Range to track their movements.

This was sparked by an increase in reports of mountain lions near urban areas being sighted too close to human areas or causing conflicts.

Credit: Colorado Parks and Wildlife

According to Jason Clay, the public information officer for CPW, it’s groundbreaking research.

“We’ve been able to understand movement patterns, when, where and a little bit of why these mountain lions are using the area that they do, the territories that they use," Clay said.

Over the past 18 years, CPW has become the leading mountain lion study in the country with three dedicated long-term mountain lion researchers. Here is what they know and what you can tell your family during dinner:

Fact #1: Colorado has anywhere from 4,000 to 5,000 mountain lions at one time.

Fact #2: Their meal of choice is deer.

Fact #3: Mountain lions are roamers, but when they find our neighboring states are lacking in resources, they come back to Colorado.

Fact #4: Spring is the peak season for mountain lions to come into the suburban areas – mainly the young mountain lions or adult females who come looking for food.

Credit: Colorado Parks and Wildlife

“We share a lot of the same habitat together, so understanding why they’re moving through these places is going to help us help manage the wildlife together along with, how do we help conserve open spaces, habitat, all of the above,” Clay said.

This unprecedented research was possible due to the technology, according to Clay.

Before, they didn’t have access to live information like they do now. Researchers had to find lions that had a GPS collar on, and get close enough where their antenna could grab the information from the collar.

Satellites now allow data to come through email to the researchers directly from the collar with more up-to-date information.

Now, CPW is using the same method to study mountain lions in the Arkansas River Basin. This time, they have even attached cameras to the GPS collars to see from the eyes of the lions.

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