Defensible cougar quotas

What happened

On June 8, 2023, the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) Commission, including the new Region 3 commissioner, voted to try to reduce mountain lion populations by 40% in Lion Management Units (LMUs) 314 and 317 in southern Park County. The change came from a last-minute amendment that Commissioner Tabor submitted the night before the meeting.

The public got no notice of the change, even though two statewide interest groups had been pushing behind the scenes for a 40% reduction in our area. To get there, the commission effectively raised quotas by 75% in LMU 317 and 120% in LMU 314. No explanation or supporting data was presented. You can watch the decision in the June commission meeting video, starting at 2:33:00.

Local houndsmen, who have their own stake in a sustainable cougar population to hunt and enjoy, opposed the increase. So did Wild Livelihoods. We both made the case calmly and on the merits.

The question nobody answered

The only rationale the commissioners gave (not the biologists) was that cougars are hurting ungulate populations. That may be true in Region 1. In Park County’s part of Region 3, the simple question stands: which ungulate species is declining because of cougars?

Some groups hinted, though no one said so at the June 8 meeting, that mule deer were the concern. No data was offered linking cougars to mule deer numbers. Commissioner Walsh made a common-sense request for better data on ungulate numbers wherever cougar quotas were changing.

The biologists have shown the public no data that the three-year mule deer decline is caused by cougars. At one point our Region 3 commissioner told us that none of the local biologists claim cougars are hurting the mule deer population. Now, apparently, there is a connection.

We do not oppose cougar quotas. We expect them to be set with business-like discipline, because they become policy that affects every use of wildlife, catch and kill as well as catch, photograph and release.

Who agrees

We stand with some of the most skilled houndsmen in the region, many of them members of the Montana State Houndsmen Association, who oppose the other coalition’s recommendation. Houndsmen have a right to hunt, and to catch and release or catch and kill, a sustainable number of cougars, just as mule deer hunters have a right to pursue deer. Wildlife watchers have a right to quotas set by science that keep populations sustainable for the paying public that drives our tourism economy.

Many ranchers here also do not want more elk, because elk carry brucellosis and that means more vaccinating. A long-term study of cougar predation in our area shows elk are a preferred prey. Keeping predators and prey in a natural balance over time is a cost-effective way to manage elk that does not lean on taxpayers.

How will anyone know it worked

This is the part that keeps a business owner up at night. How will FWP show whether this quota “test” increased mule deer, or did not?

• If the deer population goes up, is that success?
• What if deer go up and lions go up too?
• What if elk go up, and so does the risk of disease spreading to cattle?

Big swings in quotas can backfire. We want to see the reasoning behind raising quotas in LMUs 314 and 317. We ask the commission to use data from the Lion Ecoregional Planning Objective Committee to assess population trends and set quotas, and we encourage it to keep doing so. Quotas should rest on accurate population data and account for the economic and social interests of everyone in the region.

Why it matters to the local economy

We are a coalition of 179 local businesses north of Yellowstone National Park, and our livelihoods depend on wild places staying wild. Tourism is an estimated half-billion-dollar-a-year industry in Park County (coalition estimate), wildlife watching is one of the top three things Montana’s visitors do (ITRR, 2023), and seeing wildlife is a top reason people come. Hundreds of family businesses depend on it.

FWP’s charter is to keep wildlife populations sustainable for the whole public. Park County’s lodging taxes generated about $291,000 for FWP’s state parks in 2025 (the 6.5% share set in state law), and it now taxes non-fishing recreational users of our waterways, a tax we support. Hunting and fishing are not the only ways FWP gets paid.

Wildlife watching dominates the local economy, and predators are star attractions. Yellowstone’s wolves alone bring at least $82.7 million a year in visitor spending to Montana, Wyoming and Idaho (2021). Elk and bison bring people too, but visitors want the full, diverse cast.

What we asked for

When nobody can explain a decision, it is usually worth sitting down together and talking about it. Our good-faith recommendation was that Region 3 FWP set aside time to walk the local public through the rationale and the data for a 40% cut in lions, with several stakeholder groups in the room and ground rules that respect different views. We hoped to:

• Understand the reasons for raising quotas in LMUs 314 and 317, both social and scientific.
• Hear from the biologists what they know about the lion population in 314 and 317, and how they will judge whether the higher quota worked when mule deer numbers go up, go down or hold steady.
• Talk about how much the local economy depends on a range of wildlife, predators included, and how the commissioners weigh competing social factors. Are there social scientists who can speak to that?
• Hear about the services predators provide on the landscape, such as keeping ungulate numbers in check and limiting disease spread to livestock. Could the new quota hurt ranchers by raising the risk of brucellosis or chronic wasting disease moving from ungulates?

Make your voice heard

Email your Region 3 commissioner at commissionerregion3@mtfwp.org. Politely ask what information supports the idea that cougars are affecting ungulates in our area, and say it would help the community to have the biologists explain what the higher quota will do for wildlife in a tourism-centered area. Commissioner Brooke has always been willing to engage with Wild Livelihoods, and we believe she will engage with your questions and opinions too.

Common ground, and work already underway

This does not have to be a zero-sum game. Wild Livelihoods members are already doing boots-on-the-ground work for the long-term health of ungulates in Paradise Valley and the Gardiner Basin:

• Payment for presence (elk and livestock coexistence)
• Wildlife-friendly fencing
• Subdivision rules and voluntary conservation easements that protect mule deer and pronghorn migration paths
• Yellowstone Safe Passages (highway underpasses for wildlife). Over 11.5 years, starting in 2012, 845 dead mule deer were collected between Livingston and Gardiner.
• Weed management
• Drought planning

Habitat fragmentation is the long-term threat to mule deer, sheep and pronghorn here. We invite any interest group to come to local conservation meetings, or invite us to theirs, and get to work on projects that improve ungulate habitat. Our tourism and ranching neighbors carry the cost of doing business in the Greater Yellowstone while the park sends its ungulates across the line to outfitters and hunters alike.

At the very least, let’s find out together how many cougars live in LMUs 313, 314 and 317, how many ungulates they take, and every other cause of mule deer decline, so the deer can be conserved from several directions at once. Then we can have an honest debate about the right number of cougars, one that includes the customers who pay us to see predators on the landscape. The cougars, for their part, have declined to comment.

The numbers

A few highlights on recreation tourism here (more on our economic data page):

• Park County has the one and only year-round driving entrance to Yellowstone National Park.
• 22% of all labor income here comes from travel, tourism and recreation.
• Visitors spend an estimated half a billion dollars a year in Park County (coalition estimate, Montanans included). The county’s farms and ranches sold $43,690,000 in 2022 ($31.2 million livestock, $12.5 million crops; census every 5 years). In 2024 the state Livestock Loss Board paid $26,397 for Park County losses to predators (11 grizzly and 2 wolf claims), about 0.06 percent of those sales.
• Lodging wages and revenue are the largest economic category in our region. In 2025, Park County’s 4% lodging facility use tax, driven largely by Yellowstone visits, brought in a record $4,476,214. State law splits it among tourism promotion, historic preservation, FWP’s state parks and other programs; a separate 4% lodging sales tax goes to the state.
• Small business owners and the self-employed held 39% of all jobs in Park County in 2014, up from about one-third before 2000, and all of that growth was off the farm. Statewide, proprietors held 27% of jobs in 2014, up only slightly from 26% in 2000.

ITRR’s 2023 survey of out-of-state visitors to Montana ranked how they spent their time (latest full table):

When tourism rises or falls, these businesses feel it most, in order (State Department of Commerce expenditure categories): gas stations (such as Town Pump), restaurants and bars, hotels and motels, outfitters and guides, retail, grocery stores, auto rentals, rental lodging, campgrounds and RV parks, and vehicle repair.

Resources

Economic value

• Recreational Economy of Park County Report
• Park County Visitation and Lodging Data
• Yellowstone River Economic Report
• Montana Department of Commerce Tourism Research
• Institute for Tourism & Recreation Research
• Montana Outdoor Recreation Economy (2021)
• Headwaters Economics Outdoor Economy Report by State
• Bureau of Economic Analysis Recreational Data

Cats and livestock

• Livestock Loss Statistics

Research

• Study on Regional Connectivity and Importance to All Mammals
• Neonatal mortality of elk driven by climate, predator phenology and predator community composition
• Puma Population Limitation and Regulation: What Matters in Puma Management?
• Effects of Hunting on a Puma Population in Colorado
• Linking resource selection and mortality modeling for population estimation of mountain lions in Montana
• Human-caused mortality influences spatial population dynamics: Pumas in landscapes with varying mortality risks
• Ecology and Management of Black-tailed and Mule Deer of North America (2023)