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Cougars and other cougars, And wolves

Posted on April 22, 2015 by Leslie

The other day I took a hike to a high place where the ancients once hunted bighorn sheep. Although we still have bighorns around the valley, I’ve never seen one in this location. The escarpment rises to a series of wooded shelves, a layered cake of pines and firs. Three or four of these terraces and then the mountain rises vertically towards formidable buttresses of limestone.

Warning, some graphic photos below of the dead cougar

In my wanderings upwards I came to a narrow passage of rock and tree with deer hair strewn around the ground. I recognized the way it had been plucked as typical of a mountain lion. Next to all the fur I saw a winter killed carcass with the rib cage sticking out. With all the fur, my mind instantly went to a deer kill, but I soon saw something unexpected–a long tail! Here was the carcass of a cougar, a small one, no bigger than my 90 pound dog. All the meat and innards were gone, but the hide remained, as well as the head and tail, intact.

How I found it

After turning the carcass over and examining the skull remains and the teeth, I took the entire scene into account. I was standing on top of a flat closet-sized piece of ground, hidden amongst the trees and with a nice view below. About 10 feet to my right was the remains of a cat covered carcass–all fur and brush. Cats are neat animals and even once all is eaten, the small remains of what’s left are covered. I brushed the mound with my foot, but nothing was left.

Site of covered deer.

So here were the clues: 1. A cat had been here long enough to kill a deer, pluck its fur, and cover it and 2. a young cat, either a disperser or one that had lost its mother and was on its own, had been killed right next to deer kill and 3. the cougar smelled bad enough and was fresh enough that this all happened this winter sometime.

I pondered the scene. Few animals eat predators. I once saw a dead coyote that had been kicked by an elk and died in winter. I watched that carcass and nothing ate on it until it thawed enough for birds to get it. I figured the cougar was scavenged by birds such as bald and golden eagles and magpies and ravens.

My hypothesis of the crime scene goes as such: Since I know that not only was the kill done in winter so no bears were out, there also are no bears this high up with nothing to eat. We have several wolf packs here, but they tend to follow the elk. This cougar was either displaced off of his kill by a larger male cat, or wandered into the kill and then was taken out by the other cougar. Dispersing males have a hard time. Big male cougars will keep their territory under control and will kill young males. I concluded this is what happened.

I wanted to know more. A friend gave me the number for a woman who has worked with the Panthera project out of Jackson, WY and now works with Craighead Beringia. We had a long discussion about many things ‘mountain lion’, but she told me one interesting new development from the 13 year long project.

The project is very interested in the interplay between cougars and wolves. In the Jackson area, their prey overlaps more than I’ve noticed in my area. Probably because in winter the National Elk Refuge has around 6000-7500 elk. Where I live east of the Park, my basin welcomes about 1500-2000 head of elk from the Lamar herd. I’ve noticed here the cougars kill mostly deer, while the wolves take elk. Over in the Jackson area, cougars were being displaced from their kills by wolves frequently. That meant not only did they have to kill more, but that left kittens vulnerable to starvation. But cougars are smart and they’ve lived with wolves for thousands of years and so are either developing or remembering an interesting strategy. Mothers with kittens are teaming up with other mothers with kittens at a kill. So if a wolf pack shows up, instead of one cougar there might be six. Remember kittens can stay with their mother for 12-18 months so they can be formidable foes as well.

One last cougar item. Last week I was in a different area that deer use as a pass through in the winter. It’s a narrow valley, mostly meadows with few rocks or cliffs. In a large meadow, under some sparse pines, I found a very fresh cougar kill with tracks leading up to it. Only the heart had been eaten and the kill sparsely covered. When I mentioned to the Beringia representative that I’d never actually seen a live cougar, she said that next time I find a fresh kill I should camp out there overnight. Good idea!

Filed under: Cougars, Felidae | Tagged: cougar photos, Cougars, mountain lions, puma, wolves and mountain lions | 4 Comments »

Spirit of the Mountain

Posted on April 10, 2015 by Leslie

I’m not, in general, a ‘cat person’. First, I’m allergic to cats. And more than that, I’ve never understood cats, their aloofness, nor their behavior. But it seems the tables have turned for me, because I’ve become fascinated with the wild cats around here–bobcats, cougars, and the illusive lynx. Bobcat sign has become quite rare these days with the heavy trapping. Bobcat pelts sell for up to $1000. And good luck seeing a lynx or their tracks. One old timer tells me she saw one several years ago by my mailbox, but I haven’t heard of any reported sightings around here. But cougars seem to be abundant.

I put my trail cam on a ‘scrape’. Males will mark their territory with scrapes, usually under a big old conifer. Its also a scent post to attract females. If you can find a scrape, that seems to be your best bet of seeing cougars, as well as other animals. The study that’s going on in Yellowstone Park had footage of a grizzly bear lounging on a cougar scrape for a full day!

Actually, I placed two cameras on this scrape but the movie one malfunctioned, so I put together a ‘video’ from the stills of my Reconyx. You can see exactly how this big male makes a scrape by twisting his hind back and forth.

This male, it turns out, was accompanied by a female.

male and female cougar

First the male marks, then the female came and scented it using her vomeronasal organ located on the roof of her mouth. Those of you who have cats, have seen your pet smell something then raise their head to take the smell into that organ.

Cougar taking a scent up into its vomeronasal organ on the roof of its moutn

Female cougar checks out a scrape

Without trying much, I seem to be running into cougar sign. Maybe the class I took with Toni Ruth in January helped key me into how a cougar thinks, what it does, and where it goes.

I’ve seen many old cougar deer kills that have been neatly covered, but nothing is left except the legs which they don’t eat. Cats are always very neat and tidy. They drag their kills to cover, like under a tree or hidden behind rocks is typically where I’ve found them. And they pile brush up in a circle to cover their kills. This keeps them fresh and reduces scent. Also, the hair of the deer is plucked. Bears will cover their kills but they are messy and use a lot of dirt and sticks.

Old cougar kill. There is nothing left here but the cat piled it up neatly

On a short hike in a distance valley miles from where my trail cam sits, I found a fresh deer kill with snow tracks leading to it. I’d never found a fresh kill and I knew that this lion was somewhere in the neighborhood, probably watching me. But I wasn’t worried about the lion. I was worried about bears, so instead of investigating I scouted the entire area first, then backtracked. Bears will defend a found carcass while I knew that a cougar would not. All that had been eaten was the heart, and the kill looked hastily covered. Possibly Koda and I had disturbed the cat, although maybe not because it was the middle of the day. You can see the puncture wound at the neck in this photo. I hoped to catch a glimpse of the cat, but no luck. I asked Toni Ruth in her five years of studying cougars at Yellowstone National Park, how many times she saw one, apart from when she used dogs to track and collar them. With thousands of hours of tracking in the field, she’d only seen them three times in five years! I myself have never seen a cougar, only their sign.

Cougar killed deer. You can see the puncture wound at the back of the neck

Although cougars have large territories, my trail camera sits in a valley far from houses. A nice plus today in retrieving my trail cam. As Koda and I were almost to the car, I heard a Great Gray Owl.

Fresh prints in the snow lead up to the kill

Filed under: Cougars | Tagged: cougar, cougar kills, cougar scrapes, mountain lion, mountain lions, puma | 3 Comments »

More on Mountain Lions

Posted on February 20, 2015 by Leslie

A few weeks ago I attended Toni Ruth‘s Cougar Class in Yellowstone National Park through the Yellowstone Association. That class gave me some extra hints about tracking cougars. I had a sense where to find tracks in my area, but identifying scraps, and finding lays and dens was another thing. Applying what I learned, I headed out and found a kill site. I’ve found them before, but Toni suggested that cougars usually bed down close to their kill (if its a large kill they might want to eat some more later), and also usually have a toilet within 300 feet or so.

Once I found this young deer kill in a rock crevice, I began investigating for a bedding site and a toilet.

Cougar deer kill dragged to rock crevice

Within 50 feet of the kill, I found the toilet. Cats are extremely clean and meticulous. They tend to use the same area to defecate and then make sure to cover it each time. This toilet had obviously been used for years. I knew the area and there’s a ravine about 300 yards to the east. I’d found lots of cat kill evidence there before so this was a good place for this cat.

Then I began looking around for a bed site. The toilet was on the flats, but the kill had been dragged below to a small cliff area. I began investigating the rock edges. Toni had pointed out how the cats she collared in Yellowstone were traveling at the base of very high cathedral-type cliffs. I figured this cat might be doing the same. And lo and behold I found a very nice small cave–big enough for a cat to bed down in. Toni had told me that when I find these, to crawl inside and look for ‘guard hairs’, the white hairs on the belly of the cat. They apparently shed easily. Following her instructions, I found several white hairs.

Cougar bed site

Judging from the location, knowing that deer had been killed for many years in the nearby ravine, I hypothesized that this was a bed site that cat (or other cats) frequented. Toni said that cats use bed sites over and over, and that multiple cats will use them.

I returned a few days later with a trail camera and set it on the small cave. I anticipated that if I got anything, it might be months of waiting.

Another thing I learned from the class was that a better place to site a trail camera for lions is a scrape. This is because male lions use scrapes (a scent mark) to communicate a lot of information, especially to find females. And a lot of other animals will visit these scrapes. Dan Stahler who visited the class for a morning had a video of a grizzly bear taking a full days nap on a cougar scrape!

So today I went to put my camera on that scrape I found. I stopped to check the bed site cam and look what I found.

Cougar exhibits a flehmen response

Cats, including your common housecat, have what’s called a Jacobson’s organ on the roof of their mouth. This puma was smelling what had taken place in his bed site (myself as well as my dog had been there when we placed the trail cam), then drew that scent up into the roof of its mouth for a better smell. The Flehmen response is similar to smelling but the vomeronasal organ is interfacing separately with the brain. It is usually employed for detecting sexual pheromones from the urine but may also be used for supplemental analysis of any interesting smell.

I asked Toni in her seven years of cougar studies in YNP, how many times she saw mountain lions (not counting the collaring done with dogs). Her reply–3 times! I still have yet to see a cougar despite all this tracking.

Filed under: Cougars, Felidae | Tagged: American Cougar, cougar, Cougars, mountain lions, puma, Yellowstone Association | 1 Comment »

Cougars–Ghost of the Mountain

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Leslie

With this post begins a series on cougars and cougar tracking.

The first cougar print I ever saw was at a tracking class around Davenport near Santa Cruz CA. Davenport is an ocean town, backed by rolling hills and wild lands. After a morning of tracking lessons, the group split up into smaller bands and we walked around the edges of a large field. In the middle of a dirt two-track road was one cougar print.

cougar track with penny for reference

When I lived in Marin County, my neighbors and friends had plenty of cougar sightings. With a plethora of deer and no hunting, along with a lot of preserved lands up and down the coast, Marin has its share of wildlife, including cougars. But its still rare to see one.

I lived in a subdivision that abutted a large swath of open space. Thirty years ago, the early residents had the foresight to purchase the hills behind their new homes to preserve forever. They gave the management of these lands over to the Marin County Open Space District. Once on a trail in these hills, you could literally walk to the ocean about twenty miles away through vast expanses of preserved lands and ranches. From the Golden Gate National Recreation Areas north to Sonoma County, here is where cougars roam.

Marin County. Gateway to lots of hiking, Mt. Tamalpais, Muir Woods.

View looking over the vast protected hillscapes of Marin that stretch all the way to Sonoma County. This is good deer and cougar country.

Although I walked those hills almost daily, and for years, I never once encountered a lion. In September, the driest month of the year, the deer would come down from the hills to the perennial stream that ran alongside Lucas Valley Road where I lived. And the lions follow the deer. It was at this time that most sightings occurred. One day a neighbor who lived next to the Open Space area, told me she was washing dishes in the kitchen when she looked out her window and saw a cougar. Another friend was walking his dog and saw a lion. Another friend told me her son was hiking on Mt. Tamalpais when he spied a cougar on a rock above him, watching. Sadly, I never had the pleasure of seeing one.

Because of the extraordinary amount of deer in Marin, cougars are living close to people. California voters outlawed cougar hunting in 1996, yet there has never been one incident in Marin of a cougar attacking a person. In July of this year a Marin county man was attacked in a remote area of the Sierra foothills by a cougar. He was alone, in his sleeping bag, awakened by a large paw on the side of his head. He survived. This is such a rare incident. One sound theory to explain this attack is that the man’s snoring sounded like a wounded animal to the cat.

California does give out kill tags to people who claim livestock loss from cats. But you have to ask yourself: other states have a hunt on cougars in order to limit their numbers and protect people. Yet in a state as big as California, these kinds of attacks are incredibly rare. From 1890 to the present, only 19 verifiable cougar caused deaths have taken place in all of North America–one of those was in California in 2004, the only death since California’s no hunting law began, with an estimated 4000-6000 cats statewide.

Filed under: Cougars | Tagged: california cougars, Cougars, mountain lions, puma | 4 Comments »