MOUNTAIN LION TRAPPING 6 



dogs. When it chooses to fight, it uses teeth and claws, backed by 

 powerful neck and shoulder muscles, in a telling way. 



The use of poison in mountain lion control is not recommended. 

 Hunting or trapping is more satisfactory, and it is unsafe to expose 

 poison on ranges where hunting dogs are being used. 



Under certain conditions mountain lions can easily be caught in 

 traps of the size known as No. 4}^ (fig. 1). Although some persons 

 oppose the use of such traps as inhumane, no better or more practi- 

 cable device is yet available. 



WHERE TO SET TRAPS 



The No. 4% trap may be set on a known route of a mountain lion, 

 preferably at a point where the route narrows. The animal is a great 

 wanderer and generally has well-defined crossing places where it 

 passes from one watershed to another in its search for food. Many of 

 these are in the low saddles of divides, and at such crossings it is not 

 uncommon to find "scratch hills," heaped up by the mountain lion in 



B3463M 



Fisure 2. — Victim of mountain lion. A carcass found on its side, ar illustrated, furnishes 

 an excellent opportunity for making a carcass set of three or more traps, 15 to 20 

 inches from it. 



covering its urine. The writer has seen as many as eight such hills 

 in an area 4 feet square. They are sometimes 3 to 4 inches high and 

 4 to 6 inches in diameter. Frequently old or fresh feces may be 

 noticed near them. These hills make ideal places for setting traps, 

 but should be left in a natural condition. 



The mountain lion is trapped as it comes through the saddle of the 

 divide and stops to visit a scratch hill, being attracted either by the 

 hill itself or by a catnip lure placed there as described on page 4. 



When the carcass of a domestic animal, deer, or other prey found in 

 a control area shows unmistakably that a mountain lion did the killing, 

 at least three traps should be set around it, each 15 to 20 inches away. 

 When the carcass is found lying on its side (fig. 2), one trap should be 

 set, as later described, between the fore and hind legs, another near 



