How many desert bighorn sheep are lions killing?
A13 Given the size of the refuge and the way lions hide their prey when taken, no definitive count is possible. The mix of male/female/young/mature lions, which is still unknown, would also impact the numbers of animals taken. That said, the most current lion research indicates that an adult lion will take as many as one large mammal (mule deer and bighorn in the case of the Kofa) every seven days. With at least five resident lions on the Kofa, that could result in as many as 260 large mammal (mule deer or bighorn sheep) kills a year. For the three collared lions about which we have solid data, 71% of the known large mammal kills of one lion (KM01), 25% of the known large mammal kills of the second lion (KM02), and 45% of the large mammal kills documented for the third lion (KM03) – a total of 10 bighorn — were bighorn sheep. While the information from these lions is a limited sample size, it is the best lion predation data ever collected from the Kofa Mountains Complex herd and the i
