Mountain lions in Texas hold on mostly in the rugged desert mountains of the Trans-Pecos, the canyons and rimrock of Big Bend National Park, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, and the Davis Mountains, where broken terrain and mule deer give a big, solitary cat both cover and prey. NatureServe ranks the species S2, Imperiled, in Texas specifically, a real state conservation concern even though its global IUCN status is Least Concern; unlike most of the state’s small mammals, this cat is genuinely scarce on the landscape, not just under-recorded.
Of 132 documented Texas records, sightings peak in November and again in May-June, likely tied to when young cats disperse and turn up outside their usual range, though reporting is shaped as much by hikers’ cameras and trail-cam placement as by the cats themselves. The most recent record dates to July 2026.
Full species profile
