Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is looking for volunteers to form a mountain lion work group to assist in the development of harvest quota recommendations for the 2014-2015 lion hunting season in west central Montana. Vivica Crowser with FWP said recent research efforts to update and improve the lion density estimates for the Bitterroot Valley has generated a lot of interest about how those results will be applied to lion management.

"A lot of this interest and desire to have a diverse group of people come together and look at this stems out of some recent lion research in the southern Bitterroot Valley," Crowser said. "What that showed us is that the population estimates are quite a bit higher than initially predicted. So, the next step is applying that research to management. We want to know what people think based on those numbers and their experiences out there."

Crowser said the work group will meet only four days.

"The first two of those days will be April 21 and 22, and then they will conclude their work May 7 and 8," Crowser said. "People that can be there for those four days is who we are looking for. We want folks from all across western Montana and also from a variety of interests. People that hunt, people who don't, people that are houseman who are really engaged in the lion population, and people who have other interests as well, outfitters included."

FWP is scheduled to present its proposed lion harvest quotas to the FWP Commission on April 10.

The quotas will then be open to public comment through June 12.

Volunteers who can commit to this process for all four days are asked to send a one-page letter of interest that includes name, mailing address, phone number, email, and a description of interest in serving on the lion work group.

Applications can be sent to: FWP, Lion Group, 3201 Spurgin Road, Missoula, MT 59804; or email at vcrowser@mt.gov.

Applications will be accepted until Friday, April 4 at 5 p.m.

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