Mountain Lions: A Literature Review of the Effects of Hunting on Mountain Lion Populations

With human populations continuing to expand, encounters with wildlife become more frequent, and more people have the ability to go hunting. When it comes to top level predators, there have often been questions raised about the effects hunting has on their populations. Some speculate there are compensatory measures as a result, others that hunting has an additive mortality effect. The purpose of this project was to do a literature review over the topic of hunting mountain lions in order to definitively determine what the effects of hunting are on their populations. It was concluded that hunting has a negative impact on mountain lion populations, having an additive effect on their mortality rate, reducing their genetic biodiversity, reducing their rate of emigration/immigration, and changing their population demographics.