In a move that is baffling researchers, the mountain lions of Nevada are packing their bags and heading towards California. — Click to Tweet.
This is particularly odd because researchers of the big cats predicted that more mountain lions would be migrating into Nevada, instead of away from it. This data comes at the end of a seven-year study of the animals, the first study of its kind, where researchers studied 739 tissue samples provided by the Nevada Department of Wildlife and the California Department of Fish and Game.
Nevada: Sink or Source
The seven-year study was an attempt to discover which areas in the regions are sinks (habitats that animals move to at a greater rate than they leave) and which are sources (habitats that animals leave to live elsewhere).
Because mountain lion hunting is legal in Nevada, researchers predicted that this would present more land for the big cats, leading to migration. Instead, mountain lions from Nevada are heading off to join the 4,000 to 6,000 mountain lions that inhabit the Sierra Nevada in California. It is being theorized that the move can be linked to better living conditions and an abundance of prey.
Managing Mountain Lions
Researchers are saying that this mass influx of mountain lions may ultimately be detrimental for the animals.
Mountain lions, which are notoriously territorial, may soon run out of land, and the prey found within the Sierra Nevada could ultimately dwindle. While mountain lion hunting is legal in Nevada, this is not the case in California, which could lead to an explosion in the mountain lion population.
Because mountain lion hunting is legal in Nevada, the state could end up having a surplus of land for the big cats. Because of these factors, it’s very possible that the mountain lions may end up moving back into Nevada. But all predictions remain theoretical; until more research is conducted, researchers simply have no way of knowing.
The next step is to track the mountain lions by attaching radio collars to individual animals. Researchers hope that this method will allow them to get a more complete idea of the movements of mountain lions by tracing mountain lion movements over multiple generations. The findings could eventually be used to manage mountain lions populations.
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