The first thing I would like to know is how big a farm does your landowner have. If he says he has a cougar on "his land" and they have a range of 50 miles, he must have a pretty big farm ... for Iowa.
Mountain lions rarely use dens unless they have very young kittens. They usually abandon the dens as soon as the kittens are old enough to travel. 1-3 months old. Males almost never use a den unless it's to escape from another predator.
In lion country, females have a range of 20-50 miles, males have a range of 50-200 miles. Large male lions have bigger home territories than younger males. Some young males will disperse very far from where they were raised, 300-500 miles or more, especially if they are confronted by a dominant male.
Lions tend to make loops once they have established there territory. Large male lions often will cross the exact same spot in a saddle or divide once a week. Females every 2-4 days.
If a mountain lion makes a kill, a female with kittens will be back to the kill almost everyday for 3-4 weeks until everything edible is gone. Large males keep moving but will return to the same kill spot eventually. Younger males and lone females will return every 2-3 days until it's gone.
When a lion makes a kill they rarely eat more than what you can hold in your hand. For some reason they do not gorge themselves like dogs or bears will at a kill.
Wild mountian lions are constantly on the move, looking for food and sex. Females can come into heat anytime of the year, unlike almost every other animal out there, and mature males cover alot of country looking for females to breed.
A large male mountian lion is 150lbs. A large female is 100lbs.
A large female lion track 3.5-4.0 inches across. A large male lion track is 4.0-5.0 inches across. A large bobcat track that is four days old in melted out snow can be 5 inches across.
In country that has mountain lion populations, lions are often seen, photographed, shot during deer seasons, hit on roads, and occasionally seen in towns on the 6 o'clock news. They are curious animals that will follow people and often stand and look at you from a distance. They are not as elusive of creatures as many Iowan's think and generally provide more proof of existence than shadows, stories and three young males killed over the last couple of years.
