With the help of responsible citizen reports, the Department of Conservation occasionally confirms the presence of a lone individual, but we have found no proof of breeding populations.
The Evidence
Because mountain lions are reclusive animals, it's hard to know exactly when and where they are present. As compelling as a reported sighting may be, we must gather hard evidence before we can say, “yes, we have a confirmed mountain lion sighting.” To investigate citizen reports, the Department set up the Mountain Lion Response Team in 1996.
Each year the Conservation Department investigates dozens of these reports. Although 800 recorded sightings have been reported since 1994, only ten have yielded enough physical evidence to clearly confirm the presence of a mountain lion.
Many Cases of Mistaken Identity
What about the hundreds of others? Some turned out to be different animals. Dog tracks and dogs themselves are the number one and number two cases of misidentification. Bobcats and house cats--along with coyotes, foxes, deer and even rabbits--have also been mistaken for mountain lions. With some sightings, there just isn’t enough physical evidence (hair, scat, tracks, photos, etc.) to confirm or deny a mountain lion was there.
Tracking Their Status
What do these ten confirmed sightings indicate about the number of mountain lions in Missouri? Dave Hamilton, a former Conservation Department biologist studying mountain lions, estimates that on any given day, there may not be a single mountain lion in the state. “I feel comfortable saying that Missouri does not have a permanent, self-sustaining breeding population of mountain lions today. All the evidence indicates that we have a few individuals wandering into Missouri from states that do have established populations.”
To learn more about mountain lions, where they may be coming from and what evidence we look for to confirm a sighting, visit the links on this page.
