Solely a handful of confirmed sightings have occurred because the final identified mountain lion died within the state in 2014
A U.S. Forest Service worker just lately found an grownup male mountain lion carcass in Sylamore Wildlife Administration Space in Stone County, Arkansas, prompting Arkansas Recreation and Fish Fee veterinarian Jenn Ballard to conduct a necropsy on Thursday. Not solely had been the outcomes complicated, however so was the invention itself. Nobody has seen a mountain lion carcass within the state of Arkansas in virtually a decade.
The carcass, which had began to interrupt down, confirmed no indicators of bullet wounds or car collisions, Ballard mentioned in a AGFC press launch. However different clues indicated that the cat was in poor situation when it died within the north-central a part of the state.
“An grownup, male mountain lion weighing 118 kilos and measuring roughly 85 inches in size was examined Thursday on the AGFC Calico Rock regional workplace,” Ballard mentioned. “The carcass was reasonably decomposed and was extraordinarily skinny. It had severely worn, damaged and lacking enamel, and the abdomen was empty.”
The cougar will endure extra testing within the coming weeks to find out whether or not toxins or illness had been the culprits, and a explanation for dying shouldn’t be out there right now, AGFC spokesman Keith Stephens tells Out of doors Life. AGFC officers consider the cougar died the place it was found; they don’t suspect it was dumped after being transported from a unique location. And since the mountain lion had all of its claws, it was doubtless wild and never saved as an unique pet.
In November 2014, a hunter from Bastrop, Louisiana, named Douglas Ramer shot and killed a 148-pound mountain lion in Bradley County, Arkansas whereas he was sitting in his tree stand. He reported the killing to AGFC and claimed self-defense, explaining that the mountain lion had approached his stand and he felt threatened. In consequence, he was not charged for any wildlife violations, and AGFC took the carcass for analysis functions. Previous to that incident, nobody had killed a mountain lion in Arkansas since 1975.
There have been 23 confirmed mountain lion sightings in Arkansas since 2010, Stephens says. To ensure that a sighting to be confirmed, it should be accompanied by some type of tangible proof — hair, scat, tracks, pictures, or movies that enable AGFC to find out the cougar’s location.
Despite these two dozen sightings, AGFC biologists nonetheless don’t consider there’s a breeding inhabitants of mountain lions within the state. Though it’s too early to guess the place the recently-discovered lifeless mountain lion may need come from, officers decided by way of DNA testing that the lion killed in 2014 had originated within the Black Hills area of Wyoming and South Dakota.
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Mountain lions have been increasing eastward from the Rocky Mountain Entrance for years. A pocket of prime habitat and confirmed sightings exists on the eastern-central Arkansas-Missouri border, the place thick deciduous forest cowl spans each states alongside the western fringe of the the Decrease Mississippi River Basin. Stone County and Sylamore WMA fall inside this area. Mountain lions choose dense, rugged cowl removed from human disturbance for optimum searching and elevating their younger.
