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LINCOLN — Nebraska’s mountain lion country will ring in the new year with the busiest hunting season to date for the species, including the first regulated hunt in the Wildcat Hills region.
The mountain lion season is divided into three units and begins Jan. 2.
The season ends immediately in each unit when its limit, or a sublimit of females, has been met or when the season closes at the end of February. If the limits aren’t met, an auxiliary season will be conducted March 15-31.
It will be Nebraska’s largest harvest to date if hunters are successful. Most of the action will occur in the Pine Ridge of northwestern Nebraska, where a harvest limit of 12 cats, with a sub-limit of six females, has been set.
The Wildcat Hills unit along the Platte Valley of the western Panhandle has a limit of three and the Niobrara Valley of north-central Nebraska four, each with a two-female sub-limit.
The limits for each unit were set to help the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission’s objective to maintain resilient, healthy, and socially acceptable mountain lion populations that are in balance with available habitat and other wildlife species over the long term.
