Leslie Patten Books: Wild Places, Sacred Spaces

I just completed a fabulous Yellowstone Association class in Yellowstone National Park at the Lamar Buffalo Ranch.  Renowned Puma expert, Toni Ruth, led the three day seminar.  After an initial morning of introduction to the cat family, we went out looking for the elusive cat and her sign.  If you come to a cougar class thinking you’ll see a cougar, then you’ll be highly disappointed.  But you might see some sign.

Our outing on day one consisted of snowshoeing down into a steep canyon. We saw no cougar sign, but did find some bear beds.  Toni pointed out what kind of areas we might find scraps.  Scraps, usually made by males to mark territory and also to signal females, consist of a cougar scenting while pushing backwards with his back feet, not unlike a dog might do.  Usually about 12″ long with two distinct marks and a pile at one end.

Where a Scrap might be under a large conifer

Early the following morning, some of us went out to Slough Creek to find wolves.  Lots of howling and some coyotes and eagles on a kill made it all worthwhile.

Hearing wolf howls

On the second morning, Dan Stahler spoke about the Yellowstone Cougar Project. During the ‘pre-wolf’ days, over 80 cougars were tagged in the park. Using this as a baseline, Toni Ruth did a cougar study in the park from 1998-2005, tagging 83 cougars of all ages.  During this period, wolf and elk densities were high.  Since 2005, there hasn’t been a study in Yellowstone National Park regarding pumas.  In 2014, Dan began a five year cougar study. This study should reveal some interesting data since elk densities are now much lower.  As wolves, bears and cougars compete for the same food, it will be interesting to see how these top predators deal with one another and their prey base.

Collecting cougar scat the scientific way with tweezers

Toni pointed out that cougars need to make a kill approximately every 7 days. Wolf packs need to kill every 3-4 days.  But wolves are feeding an entire pack, whereas cougars are feeding only themselves.  Cougars with kittens would need to kill more often.  Therefore, cougars kill more often than wolves.

One rumor I hear a lot in these parts is that hunting will control cougar numbers.  In fact it is just the opposite.  Adult males are very territorial, with an average territory of 462 sq. miles (220-704 sq. miles) Dispersing juvenile males need to find their own territory and can have a hard time at it.  If they are in another adult males’ territory, they can be injured or killed.  Adult males that have secured their territory will be known to the females in the area.  These females will tolerate them on a kill, and even around their kittens, which may most likely have been fathered by them.  But dispersing males are what are really the threat to females with young, as they might kill the young in order to bring the female into estrus. Therefore, when hunters are killing trophy adult males in an area, they are changing the social structure and creating a constant turnover of young males.  Interestingly Toni pointed out that in her personal experience, houndsmen who have assisted scientific collaring ‘hunts’ (where cougars are tracked by dogs but instead of being killed, they are fitted with GPS collars and released for study purposes), wind up learning so much about cougars that they abandon hunting them.

Cougar hind track measuring 2.75 x 3.25

I asked Toni about the method Wyoming Game & Fish use to set cougar hunting quotas.  WG&F takes a tooth from hunter kills and ‘ages’ it.  Toni said that unless methods have greatly improved recently, tooth aging is not reliable and cannot accurately age a cat.

After an extensive hike with little results on the second day, we spent the entire last day hiking down to and along Hellroaring Creek.  Finally we had the luck we were hoping for.  Some cougar scat and good tracks!  While we were trying to measure the tracks, three bison were trying to stroll down our trail. Never mess with bison; so we gave them the room they wanted and lost our cat tracks.  Toni said since we were backtracking this cat, he was probably watching us the whole time.

Our class! We had fun.

Finally, I put this little video together from stills from my trail camera.  I also recorded the sounds separately on a Zoom recorder in front of my house this January.

Filed under: Cougars | Tagged: Cougars, Lamar Buffalo Ranch, mountain lions, Pumas, Yellowstone Association, Yellowstone National Park, Yellowstone National Park Cougar Project |