Wildlife News

Deterring Cougars

Posted: by Darrell Smith

Deterring Cougars

by RDean, Humboldt County, California

It was that kind of moment, one that left us shocked and stunned into a state of questioning our own sanity. Over almost 40 years of living in our cabin-like little-house on the edge of the Redwood forest in far-north coastal California, we had dismissed occasional accounts of cougar sightings as very possibly “someone had smoked a little too much of something that maybe they shouldn’t have.”

We had worked and played in the woods on almost a daily basis without seeing any sign yet, in less than a heartbeat, a cougar had stolen our old housecat, Little Boy, off our front porch one cold January evening–right in front of our eyes–and disappeared into the dark of night so quickly we could do nothing. Flashlight and shotgun in hand, I followed into the night, blasting away at old growth redwood stumps in the backyard to let the big cat know it had crossed the line of our tolerance. I could empathize with challenges of living the life of a predator, but when they preyed on me and mine–I could become a predator, too.

We were sad and angry for a time, but my wife (a Japanese Buddhist) came to view the incident as Karma that had finally caught up with our beloved old house cat for all the little rodents he had dispatched in a similar manner over his 23 year lifetime. We still had two other members of the family, house cats, who needed protection lest the cougar returned to try a repeat performance.

Deterring wildlife predators from poaching domestic stock and pets was not a new issue, so I reached out to farmers and ranchers for their knowledge of what measures had proved effective in their experience. One very savvy old rancher recommended we get a mule. “Mules hate cats, and will kick ‘em into next week given half a chance,” says he. Adopting and responsibly caring for a mule had its own complications, so I kept looking. It seemed like most resources agreed on a few measures that were at least helpful:

First, you CANNOT keep predators out of a protected perimeter if you entice their prey inside that perimeter by feeding your pets outdoors, having open compost piles, or allowing DEER to forage in your yard!

Learn to think like a predator. They have senses that are exponentially better than ours, and predators will accept your open invitations to dinner without your awareness. When you treat opossums and raccoons to snacks, you are also gathering them up as delectable snacks for the upper end of the food chain. Do the little critters a favor—do NOT make them dependent on you for food.

Second, BRIGHT LIGHTS and SOUND help deter wildlife.

On various outbuildings we mounted motion-sensor floodlights and also wired an old flea-market radio into their circuits. When a floodlight goes on, so does the radio. We tuned the radio to a strong 24-hour station. Sound doesn’t have to be loud to be effective. We mounted the lights lower than normal to shine more directly into an approaching critter’s eyes. We set the lights to their “TEST” setting, so the lights and the radio come on for 10 seconds, and then go off. The lights and sounds stop critters in their tracks, and makes their night-vision temporarily useless. The moment the animals make another move, another cycle of blinding light and mysterious sound hammers them. Nearby resident critters, such as foxes, will eventually figure out this puzzle, and come up with a “work around” solution, but big cats, and even resident bears who are just passing thru the area, will say “screw it,” and wander on down the trail for easier pickings.

Third, as backup for the above, we use MOTION-SENSOR rain-bird type SPRINKLERS that come on for a few seconds when triggered. These work really well for scaring off deer. Wandering wild dogs, however, will attack and destroy the sprinklers if they are at, or near, ground level.

And finally, GAME / TRAIL CAMERAS have given us valuable information about when and where predators and prey come and go. Cameras have removed a lot of the mystery and apprehension, and replaced them with appreciation and empathy for the obligatory lifestyle of these (dare I say it) totally AWESOME critters.

We feel honored to share the local forest with cougars and continue our quest to find more and better ways to coexist with them.

The Secret Life of Mountain Lions

Posted: by Darrell Smith

The Secret Life of Mountain Lions from Secret Life of Mountain Lions on Vimeo.

The Secret Life of Mountain Lions ​provides a rare glimpse into the family and social bonds of mountain lions. It affirms their rightful place ​in nature and the importance of ​protecting them ​for generations to come. Narrated by Chris Morgan (PBS, BBC, National Geographic), this video contains extraordinary ​footage captured with ​motion-triggered cameras from Panthera’s Teton Cougar Project.

What John Belushi Didn’t Teach Us About Mountain Lions

Posted: by Darrell Smith

by Dr. Jordan Schaul, First published in Huffington Post January 5, 2016. Reprinted with the author’s permission.

What may be comical, perhaps endearing and speaks to the elusive nature of the cougar (AKA mountain lion) is one of my earliest visuals of North America’s largest cat. Outside of a visit to a zoo, I recall first seeing a mountain lion in the critically acclaimed movie Continental Divide starring John Belushi. I was only eight when the Spielberg-produced comedy was released, but it served as an early and remarkable introduction for me in regard to the largest non-pantherine cat in the world and one of North America’s most iconic large predators.

Although I don’t remember the plot particularly well, I vividly remember the specific scene where human meets cougar. Unfortunately, the cinematic treatment of the run-in with the big cat not only left a lasting and erroneous impression on me, and likely my contemporaries, but it probably created many misperceptions of the big cat for a wide audience. With that said, I remember that it was a very entertaining feature film.

In the superbly directed or at least well-edited scene, a cougar wanders unceremoniously and unannounced into a cabin to the dismay of Belushi’s character and proceeds to shred him after the two exchange a few pleasantries. As a naïve and intensely urbanized cub scout with an already skewed perception of large predators and their habitat preferences, I was convinced from watching the film that cougars were common, bold and cavalier around people and commonly seen. I also gathered from the movie that these wild cats were strongly associated with rugged terrain. They do like rugged landscapes because they can seek refuge in such habitat, but before they were intensely hunted they were commonly found in a diversity of wild places, which supported ungulate prey species. Today, cougars have a restricted range in North America, having been extirpated from the Midwestern and Eastern states. But they have the most extensive north-south distribution of any land mammal in the Western Hemisphere and may be recolonizing former range states in the US.

Cougars occur in range of habitats, provided there is ample vegetative cover or rocky outcrops that provide refuge. Within temperate zones of North America and tropical and subtropical rainforests of Central and South America, the cougar inhabits a diversity of landscapes. They are not simply residents of the Northern Continental Divide and Greater Yellowstone ecosystems.

These big cats are most closely related to the cheetah and the jaguarundi, a small wild cat species with a historic range in the Southwestern United States. Although male cougars can attain weights of 140 lbs they are considered by biologists to be small cats in a big cat body. They don’t roar, but they can purr and they are quite agile and capable of jumping to considerable heights.

Although cougars can live in proximity to humans, they are exceedingly fearful of people and often retreat before a person can catch a glimpse of their presence. They typically avoid open habitats and human modified environments. A common myth is that cougars jump out of trees or off cliff ledges to attack prey. They do ambush unsuspecting animals from behind cover, but they only jump to lower elevations to build up momentum when in pursuit of prey.

Cougar-related human fatalities are far fewer than dog-related human fatalities, but perception is everything and people still perceive cougars to be dangerous to humans, pets and livestock. In North America they prey predominantly on large ungulates. Cervids (i.e. moose, elk and deer) are a mainstay and bison really represent the only exception in terms of potential prey that they won’t consider. As generalists, mountain lions forage on a very wide range of species including many large and small mammals and birds. In fact, six smaller cat species, including Canada lynx and bobcat have been reported as prey items across the mountain lion’s entire geographic range.

Although a regulated game animal in Washington State, trophy hunting has placed significant pressure on cougars and the population trend is likely in decline, at least in the Eastern part of the state. According to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife estimates, there may be as many as 2500 cougars in Washington State, although it is not possible to know real population numbers for sure.

According to Lorna Smith, the Executive Director of Western Wildlife Outreach, “Conflict with people, pets and livestock primarily occurs where hunting pressure has been intense, and large dominant males have been killed, causing disruption in localized cougar populations. Young males vie for that dominant position, and chaos can ensue for a while. In the words of Dr. Rob Weilgus whose research team has conducted many years of research on Washington’s cougar populations and their behavior, ‘When one old guy dies, three young guys come to the funeral’. All of a sudden young cougars are vying for dominance in the vacated territory, competing for resources for food and mating. The losers may venture onto ranches or farms in search of any kind of prey. So, we now know that the role of older dominant toms is very important in reducing conflicts with humans and their domestic animals.”

WWO has produced a video on staying safe in Cougar Country, which can be viewed here on our Vimeo channel.

Rivers, Salmon, Bears and Healthy Forests

Posted: by Darrell Smith

“What if I told you that the trees are here, in part, because of the salmon? That the trees that shelter and feed the fish, that help build the fish, are themselves built by the fish?” ~ Carl Safina, essayist for Salmon in the Trees

Under the cover of darkness, black bears prowl the banks of the stream, wading out among moss-covered rocks below overhanging branches festooned with drooping lichen. The bears are waiting for the return of their favorite feast, spawning salmon. The salmon are returning guided by mysterious forces that have inexorably drawn them from their ocean home back to the streams where they were born and where they will spawn and die, completing the circle of life. But there is a bigger story that goes beyond the salmon, the river and the bears. It’s a story about the intricate connection between the towering conifer giants of the temperate west-coast rainforests, the hungry bears and the returning salmon.

While it might seem somewhat intuitive that the nutrients and nitrogen provided by salmon are beneficial to aquatic plants and plants growing on the stream banks, it has only been in the last decade that the critical role played by bears, both black bears and grizzlies, in dispersing nutrients from salmon throughout the riparian forest has been identified and recognized as an essential component in maintaining the health of riparian forests.

Beginning with early studies by Tom Reichman in 2000, and continued by Gende, Quinn and other prominent researchers, primarily in British Columbia and Alaska, the ultimate “fate” of salmon carcasses removed from the river by bears has been tracked. One such study examined the transport of the salmon into the forests in three watersheds in Southeastern Alaska over three seasons using tagged sockeye salmon and the ultimate location of the recovered tags to tell the story. The results were surprising: up to 50% of the fish caught and killed by bears, both brown bear and black bear, were transported away from the streams and into the surrounding temperate rainforest. Once the bears have successfully landed a protein-rich fish, they often disappear with the prize deep into the trees in order to avoid competition from other bears or scavengers. Once there, the remains of the fish are scattered through the forest,  along with bear scat.

And now the story really gets interesting. Following up on this initial research regarding nutrient transport into forests, a team of researchers headed up by James Helfield and Robert Naiman of the University of Washington’s College of Forest Resources devised a method to measure the actual amount of marine-derived nitrogen in trees through coring the trees and examining the stable nitrogen isotope ratios of annual growth rings.

Nitrogen availability has been identified as the limiting factor for terrestrial plant growth in riparian ecosystems. The study concluded that trees and shrubs near spawning streams grew three times faster than other control stands, and that salmon-borne, marine-derived nitrogen is the reason why. As riparian forests affect the quality of in-stream habitat through shading, sediment and nutrient filtration, and production of large woody debris (LWD), this fertilization process serves not only to enhance riparian production, but may also act as a positive feedback mechanism by which salmon- borne nutrients improve spawning and rearing habitat for subsequent salmon generations and maintain the long-term productivity of river corridors along the Pacific coast of North America.  And all of this marine-derived nitrogen from salmon is transported and made available to the trees by bears!  

Over millenia bears have been fulfilling this age-old critical role of salmon carcass dispersers, moving nutrients from the stream to the forest, so that riparian trees grow tall and strong, eventually contributing large woody debris to streams, improving spawning and rearing habitat for subsequent salmon generations and maintaining the long-term productivity of river corridors along the Pacific Coast of North America. Its time to give bears there due in the watersheds of the Pacific Northwest as the real kings of the forest.