Wildcat Hills mountain lion season closes

The 2025 mountain lion hunting season in Nebraska’s Wildcat Hills Unit closed Jan. 5 after three mountain lions, two males and one female, were harvested.

Regulations require the unit to be closed once the annual harvest limit of three mountain lions — with a sublimit of two females — is reached.

The Pine Ridge Unit remains open, with three mountain lions harvested as of Jan. 5; they include two females and one male. The harvest limit for the unit is 12 mountain lions with a sublimit of six females.

The Niobrara Unit met its harvest limit Jan. 2 and closed on that date.

An auxiliary season would be March 15-31 for the Pine Ridge should the harvest limit or female sublimit not be reached during Season 1.

The limits for Nebraska’s three mountain lion hunting units were set to meet 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.

The Wildcat Hills Unit was added to the mountain lion hunting season for the first time during the 2025 season. It encompasses parts of Scotts Bluff, Banner, Kimball, Morrill, Cheyenne and Garden counties.

This is the state’s eighth mountain lion harvest season; the first was in 2014.

Mountain lions are native to Nebraska but were extirpated from the state in the early 1900s. They moved back into the state from South Dakota, Wyoming and Colorado as populations of prey species increased. Mountain lion presence in Nebraska was confirmed in the early 1990s, and in 1995 the state legislature classified them as game animals.

Since then, the cats have established reproducing populations in Nebraska’s most rugged terrain: the Pine Ridge, Wildcat Hills and Niobrara Valley with occasional confirmed presence in other parts of the state.

For more information about mountain lions in Nebraska, visit OutdoorNebraska.gov and search for “Mountain Lions.”