Article doesn't mention relative populations, but interesting. Not sure the significance. The article doesn't mention it, but the comments seem to imply it relates to regulation of the wolf population. Guess they need to consider regulating both, or saying the heck with it, the more predators the better.
That was my first thought. I couldn’t find anything on cougar populations in Idaho. Seems the officials don’t keep track of an estimate on the population for whatever reason.
At the end of 2015 there were 786 wolves. Some “save the elk” website said that was way too low. But they estimated 4,000 wolves. I can’t imagine it would be that many.
I did find a site that showed a total of 92 lions could be killed this year for the entire state. Although some of the hunting zones were left blank. But I’m guessing the blanks are for where cougars probably aren’t present, and it means zero can be killed, rather than no limit.
But, if you can take 92 cougar, I’m guessing the lion population must be quite a bit higher than the 786 wolf population. There are an estimated 2,000 cats in Washington state. But I’m guessing that there is less habitat in Idaho (smaller state). Although Idaho seems a lot wilder to me with more great habitat, so who knows.
Washington had 225 cats killed by hunting recently. They allow 12% of the estimated population to be killed. So the 225/2,000 adds up. So perhaps around 1,000 cats in Idaho.
I new the wolf population was in the high hundreds for Idaho. Before I started this research comment I figured “If there are hundreds of wolves, there must be thousands of cats, as they’ve been there forever.” Pretty amazing how fast those 35 wolves have grown in just 29 years.
An aside - the state of Washington wants to reintroduce frikkin grizzly bears!
Also came across an article that the elk population in the “Lolo region” of Idaho has dropped from 16,000 to 2,000 elk in XX years.
I did a job near Salmon, Idaho in 1995 or 1996. They had just introduced four wolves into the area. Driving to the site one day there was a wolf hanging on a fence, along with a sign. “Ranchers 1, Wolves 0”.
I just read that they introduced 35 wolves by 1995 in Idaho. So an “official” 786 today. Which is down from their peak years in 2009-10.