Posted on Sun, Jan. 15, 2006

Fifth cougar killed closing season

Associated Press

GRASSY BUTTE, N.D. - A hunter killed a mountain lion northwest of here on Sunday, the fifth cougar killed since a special North Dakota hunting season opened last fall.

Wildlife Division Chief Randy Kreil said the season is now closed.

Kreil said Jeremy Duckwitz of Carrington harvested the young female cougar, with the help of dogs.

The cougar weighed about 60 pounds, Kreil said.

The state had set a quota of five mountain lions for its experimental lion season. The season opened Sept. 2 and was scheduled to run until March 12.

North Dakota hunters harvested three males and two females during the abbreviated season, Kreil said.

"She presumably was born here," Kreil said of the cougar killed Sunday. "But that's an assumption."

Dorothy Fecske, a furbearer biologist with the state Game and Fish Department, said the four other cougars were killed in the same general area in western North Dakota.

Fecske was making arrangements Sunday to conduct a necropsy on the carcass.

Fecske performed a necropsy Friday on the fourth mountain lion. It was bagged Jan. 6 by Belfield hunter Rick Froehlich.

The 2-year-old male mountain lion weighed 111 pounds and was nearly 7 feet long. It had high organ fat reserves, indicating it was healthy, Fecske said.

"There was nothing to speak of in its stomach, except a few fine hairs from an unidentified mammal," she said.

State officials have said that another mountain lion season may be held later this year.