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I had the hounds out looking for a lion track a few weeks ago. I had almost completed the loop I planned to ride having gone about 15-miles with about 3-miles left till I made it to the truck. I hadn't cut any fresh sign,and had written the day off as a nice horseback ride. I came into the jeep trail that led to the truck. And there was a female track going the opposite way I was. It was blown in pretty good so I figured it would be a waste of time trying to get the hounds to run her. I continued on in the direction I was headed. After about a mile the hounds started getting excited and took off trailing. I took a quick look and saw they were backtracking this female. I had let them go a little ways and started thinking I should turn them around and try the right end of this track. My Scout dog put his nose into the wind and took off. So my first thought was lion kill. Well he had winded this kill from a long way off. And I followed him and the other hounds a good half mile before we came to what Scout had aired. It wasn't a lion kill but a dead lion kitten. The female had been all around this dead kitten,and it looked like she had spent alot of time there. Even though it looked like the kitten had been dead at least a couple weeks. The hounds couldn't trail away from the kitten. That didn't really surprise me seeing that the female had been around the dead kitten for what looked like a couple days. This got me to thinking was this female in some kind of mourning over the loss of her only kitten. And was she coming by to check on him. Maybe to see if he really was dead. I know alot of this may sound strange coming from an old lion hunter. That has spent his life hunting and trailing down mountain lions. But I think it is just some of the respect l have for mountain lions. And also my quest to learn more about them. I was wondering if anybody else had seen this kind of behavior out of females lions.

That's really interesting. I sure don't know.

Chris,

That is a real interesting deal there and it triggered a memory from some 20 plus years ago. We got on a really big tom track real early in the morning and that was back when old Big John was in his prime and it was a good runing track and in almost no time he had that tom up a pinion tree. Well we got up there and this was one of those big old smelly punkin headed toms and he was swoll up like a toad frog he was so full of kill. Well I had a fella along who wanted a big tim and this one was a whopper so he got int here made a good shot with his 357 and it was all over. Well as was my custom in those days being interested in the feeding habits of these big toms when I opened him up he was full of chomped up lion kittens. These were small and spotted but it looked like he had bumped into a cached up pair and just eliminated them and his hunger too. I am only assuming the female was away when this happened but in hunting that same few canyons over the next month or so it seemed I couldn't go anywhere that that female had not been and I think she was looking for those long gone kittens. she had a pretty small track and I felt maybe this was her first litter and she just couldn't figure out what had happened.

As we know at times these females will go off a good ways hunting and leave them smaller kittens holed up some place and I am sure those maurading outside toms will sure back track her if they can and kill those kittens.

I like you have a great deal of respect for lions, but I will say this about those real big toms when they cross territories and go on a land grab they will kill just about anything they want and if a female resists too much she is dead meat too.

I know a rancher years back killed a couple of older kittens still running with there mother but looked big enough to be on their own.. of course being a rancher and having lost many calf's to lions he just dug a hole with a backhoe and buried them.. over the next couple of weeks they found that females tracks over that hole most every night.. I believe she was looking for them

Mike, Those toms do put a hurtin on kitten lions. Personally I think alot more than most people realize. This kitten was about 60-lbs at the time of his death. The area I found it in is patrolled regularly by a large Tom. And I am pretty sure this kitten had a run in with that tom

I haven't witnessed it personally, but I remember reading in Wiley Carroll's book a story from Bud Dalton. He said that he started a track from two lions & treed a 6-7 month old female. After dispatching it, he left it there to take after the mother with the plan that he would be back in a little while to skin it. As the day wore down , he decided to come back the next morning to finish & try again for the female. As he approached , he could see where the mother had been there. The mother had tried so hard to get the little female up that she had actually rubbed off the hair in a few places & had moved her roughly 10 feet away from her original position.