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Puma, cougar, panther or mountain lion - whatever you choose to call the big cat, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department has a new online course to aid in correctly identifying male and female mountain lions in the field.
"The Mountain Lion Education and Identification Course was designed to help hunters, guides, outfitters, houndsmen, and other wildlife enthusiasts determine gender in mountain lions," says Reg Rothwell, Biological Services supervisor for the Game and Fish. "Wyoming law prohibits the harvest of females with dependent young, but females may not have kits at their sides when searching for prey and can be mistaken for males. We hope this course will improve hunters’ ability to determine gender."
The course offers a written guide with information on mountain lion habitat, physical appearance, diet, tracks and hunting regulations, in addition to tips on gender identification. After reviewing the written guide, site visitors can test their knowledge with an interactive, graded quiz.
"The quiz is a follow-up to the written guide and will test on concepts from the course using photos and illustrations," explains Rothwell.
The quiz is 19 questions long. The course and quiz can be found on the Game and Fish Web site at http://gf.state.wy.us under the "What's New" tab.
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