The Forests With The Most Mountain Lions
Mountain lions (Puma concolor), also called cougars, pumas, catamounts, and panthers, are the second-largest cat native to North America, after the jaguar. The largest of them can grow to be eight feet long and, in rare cases, weigh more than 200 pounds. They are predominantly solitary and incredibly elusive animals. A hiker can spend a lifetime in mountain lion country and never see one.
They move quietly through the forest, inhabiting a wide variety of habitats in search of their staple prey, deer. They traverse ridgelines, creek bottoms, brushy woodlands, and mountainous terrain. National forests such as Coronado National Forest in Arizona and Los Padres National Forest in California stand out for their extensive mountain lion habitat, documented populations, and major research projects.
Los Padres National Forest, California
Los Padres contains the vast tracts of unfragmented wilderness and abundant prey that make an area perfect for supporting a large population of mountain lions. Because mountain lions are difficult to count directly, researchers estimate abundance using methods such as scat-DNA sampling, spatial capture-recapture models, camera surveys, and GPS telemetry. CDFW's current preliminary model estimates approximately 4,172 mountain lions statewide, with a 95% confidence interval of 3,645 to 4,750, but it does not provide a Los Padres National Forest total.
The mountain lion is one of twelve management indicator species for the Los Padres National Forest. These indicator species are closely monitored, as their population trends are believed to indicate the effects of different conservation and management activities. The 2005 Southern California forest plans designated the mountain lion as an indicator of habitat connectivity and called for cooperative studies with CDFW and the USGS, but they did not estimate the number living in Los Padres.
Cleveland National Forest, California
Cleveland National Forest provides important core habitat within a heavily fragmented region, but no forest-specific estimate establishes that it supports a large mountain lion population. Suitable habitat for mountain lions depends heavily on access to large, unfragmented areas of land. In the Santa Ana and Eastern Peninsular populations, documented home ranges averaged about 46,500 acres for females and 78,100 acres for males, although individual ranges varied widely.
Mountain lions in the southern California landscapes surrounding Cleveland National Forest already face habitat fragmentation, restricted gene flow, and vehicle mortality. The forest sits near the San Diego and Orange County suburbs. Mountain lions are tracked in this area as a management indicator species because urban sprawl around the forest's edges is fragmenting the habitat corridors where they move, hunt, and find mates.
Coronado National Forest, Arizona
The patchwork terrain of Coronado National Forest might not necessarily account for the entire home range of many mountain lions, but it is the kind of terrain that they use as movement corridors between areas. Coronado is made up of sixteen isolated "sky island" mountain ranges rising out of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts, each one a forested refuge connected to the next by desert lowland. Lions are documented in mountain ranges within Coronado National Forest, including the Santa Catalina and Santa Rita Mountains.
Mule deer are also a common sight at Coronado National Forest, and a staple prey animal of the mountain lion. Broken terrain, rocky outcrops, and dense vegetation provide cover that mountain lions can use while stalking and ambushing prey.
Uncompahgre National Forest, Colorado
From 2004 through 2014, CPW researchers marked 226 unique pumas during 440 capture events in a 2,996-square-kilometer study area on the southern Uncompahgre Plateau.
The area is particularly well-suited to mountain lions because of its combination of abundant prey, cover, and rugged terrain. In the Uncompahgre study area, adult pumas preyed on mule deer and elk in approximately equal proportions, and both ungulates formed an important prey base. The plateau's mix of forest, woodland, and shrubland provides habitat for ungulates as well as stalking cover for mountain lions.
Gunnison National Forest, Colorado
Gunnison National Forest contains large swaths of mountainous terrain and populations of large ungulates such as mule deer and elk, the exact type of conditions where mountain lions thrive. The area's combination of rugged terrain, forest and woodland cover, and abundant prey provides both the area for mountain lions to establish home ranges and ample hunting opportunities.
The Gunnison Basin was one of CPW's initial Western Slope density-study areas, but its mixed-ownership landscape does not correspond to the boundary of the Gunnison portion of the national forests. GPS collars and camera-based mark-resight surveys produced an estimated density of about 4.2 independent lions per 100 square kilometers, or 39 square miles, in the Gunnison Basin study area. The result exceeded CPW's modeled estimate for the Gunnison Basin, but it should not be treated as a population count for Gunnison National Forest itself.
Black Hills National Forest, South Dakota and Wyoming
The 1.2-million-acre Black Hills National Forest contains pine-covered hills, rocky canyons, grassland openings, and rugged formations that provide suitable habitat for mountain lions. The combination of stalking cover and populations of deer and other ungulates helps support the Black Hills lion population, which accounts for most of the mountain lions documented in South Dakota.
South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks estimated 393 mountain lions in the broader Black Hills region before the 2024-2025 hunting season, although the estimate had a wide 95% confidence interval of 119 to 680. The agency monitors the population through annual DNA mark-recapture surveys as well as harvest and mortality data. Because the study covers the Black Hills Fire Protection District rather than Black Hills National Forest alone, the estimate should not be treated as a forest-specific count.
Mountain Lions in the Forests
Mountain lions remain elusive animals, and even in forests known for supporting strong populations, most hikers will never catch a glimpse of one. From the sky island mountain range travel corridors of Coronado National Forest to the GPS-collar studies of the Gunnison Basin, these national forests all share the habitat, terrain, and prey base that mountain lions depend on. Research in and around these forests provides valuable evidence about mountain lion habitat, movement, and population health, even though it does not establish a strict forest-by-forest ranking.
