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For the third year, hunters can kill mountain lions. This year the mountain lion season is different. It started Friday and will go until March 9th. The North Dakota Game and Fish has divided the state into two zones. The Badlands is Zone one the rest of the state is considered zone two. Only five mountain lions can be taken from the badlands area. The first cat was killed by a bow hunter near Grassy Butte on Saturday. (Randy Kreil / ND Game & Fish) There's no quota in Zone 2 which is the remainder of the state and purpose of that is not really mountain lion habitat. Lions in that area are transients and not contributing to the population and are in places where quite frankly we don't want Lions to be. Kreil says the only suitable habitat for mountain lions is in the Badlands area. Hunters wanted a chance to harvest cats in that area this year since no mountain lions were taken from there last year. The maximum of five lions were killed during each of the first two seasons.