Why do we blame lions?

Mule deer herds are declining across the West for many reasons. But three states, Utah, Wyoming and Nevada, want to pin the blame on mountain lions.

Utah has now opened the floodgates to year-round lion hunting and trapping, while Nevada continues to resist trapping reforms. In Wyoming, a proposed law allowing lion hunting and trapping without restrictions was thwarted only after legislators heard overwhelming opposition from citizens as well as the state’s wildlife department.

In 2023, Utah legislators quietly but drastically altered lion management without a public involvement process. Since then, 82 percent of lions killed in the state—particularly females—have been killed in traps.

This coincides with a recent study that found that most mountain lions who fall victim to traps are hungry mothers, driven to feed themselves and their kittens. But dead mothers can’t nourish orphaned kittens, who are left to starve.

State agencies use thesurvival of adult females as a measure for maintaining lion populations. Utah data show that in 2024, the female lion mortality rate reached an unsustainable 60%.

The state’s carnivore manager recently admitted that Utah’s lion populations are in decline. He also told a legislative committee last fall that “we need to keep our foot on the gas” to continue to suppress female lions. At that same meeting, his boss said that prolonged drought had taken a toll on mule deer numbers.

It only makes things worse that, in January 2025, Utah’s wildlife board approved the sale of mountain lion pelts, claws and skulls on global markets.

In contrast, Wyoming’s House Bill 0286, which would have removed quotas, season limits and prohibitions on trapping mountain lions, failed to make it past its first committee hearing. The values of participatory democracy and science-based management won the day.

When it comes to traps, the problem is that they also indiscriminately kill non-target species, including endangered animals, deer, raptors and pets. Yet Nevada continues to prioritize trappers’ interests over ethical and biological considerations.

This January, Nevada’s wildlife commissioners denied a citizen petition that sought to modify trapping regulations to prevent the suffering and deaths of mountain lions caught in traps set for other animals. Overlooking strong arguments, the commission voted to uphold its current time limit for checking traps to 96 hours.

This means lions or other trapped animals could suffer for days in leghold traps or foot snares until the trapper arrives to kill them.

Here’s the basic issue: Lions get blamed for the decline in mule deer, but science makes it clear that the West’s populations suffer most from the threats of modern life.

Highways, housing, and energy development fragment the land, while cattle and sheep compete for habitat. Other pressures come from over-hunting, poaching, wildfire, noxious weeds, drought, and fluctuations in snowpack and temperatures.

There’s also chronic wasting disease, a fatal, infectious prion disease that affects deer, elk and moose. Mountain lions and other native carnivores play a critical role in limiting and even halting the spread of CWD.

In a Wyoming study, biologists found that 28% of mule deer in two populations were infected, and that lions primarily preyed upon sick individuals. A Colorado study similarly revealed that mountain lions killed more diseased deer than human hunters, and that lions consumed over 85% of the carcasses, thus removing substantial amounts of prion contamination from the environment.

Unlike human hunters who target the healthiest individuals in a population, carnivores selectively prey on diseased animals. Lions are needed to maintain healthy herds, and if states were smart, they’d recognize their value to our ecosystems.

The contrasting attitudes of these three states illustrate a larger battle over managing wildlife in the West. Utah has embraced a market-driven approach that prioritizes commercial interests over conservation.

Wyoming, even with its strong hunting culture, recognized that unregulated mountain lion killing was too radical. Nevada, despite calls for reform, remains stuck in outdated, cruel policies.

For the sake of the West’s ecosystems, we need wildlife agencies and lawmakers to look at the facts and stop scapegoating native carnivores. Anyone who wants to hunt abundant mule deer herds needs to face the reality that the West’s landscapes are degraded.

Lions, though, are not to blame.

Wendy Keefover is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring conversation about the West. She is senior strategist for native carnivore protection for Humane World for Animals.

Lion double set trap, Photo NDOW