The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission this morning unanimously approved the state’s first mountain lion hunting season…a combination of a limited permit hunt with a 4-animal maximum in the Pine Ridge from January-March and a year-round unlimited hunt in most of the rest of the state.

The plan divides the state into 4 mountain lion management units: the Pine Ridge, which has Nebraska’s only confirmed breeding population, the Niobrara River Valley and Wildcat Hills…which may have breeding populations…and the rest of the state.

No hunting will be allowed in the Wildcat Hills and Niobrara Valley units. The Pine Ridge season is intended to keep that population at or near its current 15-to-22, while the statewide season is aimed at lone males with no permanent home habitat.

The Pine Ridge hunt will divided into separate 6-week sections, each with a bag limit of 2 mountain lions but ending immediately if the first lion taken in each half is a female.

The first half-season will be limited to just 2 hunters…the winner of a lottery limited to Nebraska residents and the winning bidder at an open auction…while the second half-season would be for 100 others drawn from the resident lottery pool. Dogs will be allowed in the two hunter section, but not the other.

Application fees for the lottery pool and proceeds of the auction will be used for the state’s mountain lion management program in much the same way those from Nebraska’s big horn sheep permits.

The statewide or plains mountain lion season will require hunters to get a permit at least 24 hours in advance, but there will be an unlimited number of permits and an unlimited quota.

Game and Parks Deputy Director Tim McCoy says the proposal approved by the commission was significantly different than the one table by the panel when it met in Chadron two months ago…adding the statewide system and increasing the maximum take from 3 to 4.

McCoy says the changes were the result of public input at the Chadron hearing, and he expects to see more changes when the 2015 season comes up for action…based on the experiences of next year’s first season.

The new hunting season rules do not affect state laws that already allow people to kill mountain lions if they threaten people or attack livestock.

More information about revised mountain lion hunting season is available online at the Game and Parks website at outdoornebraska.ne.gov/wildlife/wildlife_species_guide/mountainlion

Mountain lions were native to Nebraska, but homesteaders and other early settlers had killed them off or driven them off by the end of the 19th century.

The first confirmed sighting of a cougar in Nebraska in modern times was in 1991 in the Pine Ridge. The first cougar kittens were documented in the Pine Ridge in 2007, indicating a resident population.