The mountain lion population in North Dakota's Badlands could be spreading into the northern Missouri River Breaks region.

That's one of the conclusions in the latest report on the status of mountain lions compiled by the North Dakota Game and Fish Department.

The theory is based on the increase of verified reports of lions in the area, said Dorothy Fecske, NDGFD furbearer biologist.

"In the past year and a half, we had four mountain lions verified in that region, and in the previous five years only one," she said.

The Missouri River Breaks region lies mostly along the Missouri River and Lake Sakakawea from south of Williston through the Fort Berthold Reservation, and contains enough suitable habitat to sustain a small number of lions, the report said.

And initial results from DNA analysis indicate North Dakota's lions are more diverse than biologists thought, Fecske said.

"There is an indication there there are multiple breeding females in the Badlands since the early '90s," said Fecske, who gave her report to the NDGFD management team Monday. The report is available on the NDGFD Web site, http://gf.nd.gov.

The report is designed to help keep the public informed, said wildlife division chief Randy Kreil. Some of its conclusions are based on the analyses done on many of the mountain lions that have been killed in the state.

Fecske analyzed two of those mountain lions - a 97-pound, 4-year-old female and a 2- to 21/2-year-old, 112-pound male - late last week. The male was killed in a farmyard in Divide County, and the female was the first taken in the 2007-08 lion season.

The necropsy showed the female appeared to have had a littler of two kittens, but she was not traveling with kittens when she was killed, Fecske said. Kittens can survive on their own at around 9 months, she said. Mountain lions traveling with kittens, as well as kittens, are off-limits to hunters.

During the necropsy, Fecske and Sarah Neigum collected samples of unknown mammal hair from the stomachs of both cats. The samples will be sent to a lab for identification.

Information from such analyses is adding to the state's lion knowledge bank, Kreil said.

"Our database of DNA and other biological information have given us a better picture of what mountain lions are doing and what they might do in the future. That will help us design our hunting season to manage the population," said Kreil.