U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The grizzly bear warranted 

 special investigation because of its occurrence in the 

 Cabinet Mountains and because identified critical grizzly 

 bear habitat was present within the project area boundary. 

 The KNF contracted Olson-Elliott & Associates to evaluate 

 the quantity and quality of grizzly bear habitat in the 

 Mount Vernon area and to cover the area in search of grizzly 

 sign. 



Grizzly bear are uncommon native inhabitants of the 

 Cabinet Mountains. No grizzly bear observations or defini- 

 tive grizzly sign were noted during field reconnaissance; 

 however, one grizzly was reportedly observed in the Middle 

 Fork of Ross Creek during summer 1978 by KNF personnel 

 (B. Dahl, pers. comm. ) . One large freshly excavated bear 

 den was discovered in the Middle Fork of Ross Creek during 

 October 1977 (Olson-Elliott & Associates 1977) . A male 

 grizzly was illegally shot near Troy during fall 1977, Lo- 

 cations of grizzly bear sign in the West Cabinet Mountains 

 are given in reports by Olson-Elliott & Associates (1977); 

 Erickson (1977) and Ruediger (1977) . 



Olson-Elliott & Associates (1977) concluded that the 

 West Cabinet Mountains study area has high values for food 

 habitat quality, cover habitat quality, space habitat quality 

 and behavior quality. Additional information collected dur- 

 ing the contract study may be obtained from the MDSL/KNF Troy 

 Project Environmental Impact Statement (19 78) . No effort was 

 expended during the comprehensive wildlife inventory project 

 to specifically search for grizzly sign. 



Mountain Lion 



Mountain lion observations and sign recorded on the study 

 from 1974 through 1978 are presented in Appendix 14. A total 

 of 83 instances of lion use on the study area is given. These 

 include: sign (tracks, scrapes and scats) and observations 

 (dead, treed or marked lions and locations of one radio- 

 equipped individual). 



The distribution of mountain lion observations and sign 

 is given in Figure 16. The locations of 29 observations are 

 shown although these represent a maximum of 21 individual 

 lions utilizing the study area over a 5-year period. 



Forty-seven instances of lion use were collected by 

 E. Vance (pers. comm.), a local houndsman and cooperator 

 in the MDFWP mountain lion tagging program. Lions were 

 tracked and treed by trained dogs, tranquilized, and then 

 marked with neoprene rope collars each having a colored 

 numbered pendant. 



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