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| Cougar - Puma concolor | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 7 2012, 08:46 PM (39,615 Views) | |
| k9boy | Mar 15 2018, 07:58 AM Post #76 |
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Apex Predator
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scary as hell |
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| CanineCanis | Mar 15 2018, 08:38 AM Post #77 |
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Herbivore
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If I was in his position, I’d wet myself immediately |
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| kuri | Mar 16 2018, 12:38 AM Post #78 |
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Omnivore
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197-pound cougar captured by biologists "the cat is so muscular that the first tranquilizer dart popped out as it flexed. " http://www.heraldnet.com/northwest/uncommonly-big-197-pound-cougar-captured-by-state-biologists/
Edited by kuri, Mar 16 2018, 12:39 AM.
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| kuri | Apr 6 2018, 11:24 PM Post #79 |
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Omnivore
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This Mountain Lion Hides Her Kills in Abandoned Ranches Adventurer Casey Anderson has tracked a female mountain lion to her unlikely den: an abandoned ranch close to his home. He ventures inside, camera in hand, for a closer look. (3:23) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/category/science/this-mountain-lion-hides-her-kills-in-abando/ |
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| k9boy | May 21 2018, 08:05 AM Post #80 |
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Apex Predator
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(Today)Cougar kills 1 man, injures another
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2018/05/20/cougar-kills-one-man-injures-another-in-rare-attack-outside-seattle/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.fd13a6ad3d9f https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/20/mountain-bikers-fatal-cougar-attack-washington-state |
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| CanineCanis | May 28 2018, 10:02 AM Post #81 |
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Herbivore
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Are cougar attacks on mountain bikers on the rise? "In the introduction of the excellent book, "Cat Attacks," authors Jo Deurbrouck and Dean Miller ask this question about humans and cougars: "Can we continue to pretend, living side by side with such an effective predator, that we are never prey?" Published in 2001, the book makes a compelling argument that sometimes cougars prey upon humans. I read the book while researching hiking trails for a guidebook, and think I spent more time looking over my shoulder for cougars than I did watching the trail in front of me. For the record, I never saw a cougar. More:Cyclist did everything right before 'emaciated' cougar attacked In fact, I've only seen one in the wild in more than a half-century in the great outdoors. Another time, tracks in the snow told me a cougar stalked me nearly 5 miles. Certainly you've read something of the tragic fatal cougar attack on a mountain biker last week near North Bend. The animal apparently bit one rider on the head before attacking and killing the rider's partner. Media like Outside Online have mentioned a number of possible explanations for the rare attack -- it's only the second fatal cougar attack in Washington in nearly 100 years. Wes Siler offered "the cougar was starving," or "the victim's behavior triggered the attack," or "the victims could have done more to stop the attack." More likely, tragic and sad but true: the cougar was hunting and found its prey. May S. J. Brooks rest in peace. More: Emergency call: 'I got attacked by a mountain lion' "Cat Attacks" includes studies of instances where cougars treated humans as prey during the 1990s and from historic accounts of the past century. It remains a definitive study of mountain lion-human interaction, in my opinion, and if you want to learn about cougar behavior, I'd recommend this book. I also believe that cougar attacks on mountain bike riders are rising disproportionately. I remember at least three such instances since 2011, although none were fatal. Authors Deurbrouck and Miller chronicled 53 cougar attacks between 1990 and 1999, more than double the 20 attacks of the decade before. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife reports that in the last century, cougars killed 25 people in North America and attacked at least 95 others. Instances where cougars treat humans as prey is increasing. More attacks have been reported in the western U.S. and Canada in the last 20 years than in the previous 80, state Fish and Wildlife reports. Now, if you ride a mountain bike on Olympic National Forest trails, or hike Olympic National Park trails, you're in cougar country. Sightings of the big cats are reported annually and at least one cougar attack, at Camp Handy in Olympic National Forest, is a matter of record. Organizations such as the Mountain Lion Foundation provide advice on what to do if you encounter a cougar. Things like, "Be aware," and "Bring a friend," and "Avoid jogging or mountain biking (in) low-light conditions at dusk and dawn." Years ago, I was lucky enough to interview Jo Deurbrouck on the book she wrote with Dean Miller. I asked her what she did while running wilderness trails to remain cougar-aware. She said, "I try to think like a deer," the cougar's preferred prey." Seabury Blair Jr. is the author of Day Hike! Olympic Peninsula and 5 other Northwest hiking guides, including Day Hike! Spokane, Coeur d'Alene, and Sandpoint, just released. E-mail Seabury at skiberry@hughes.net. Source |
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| Flesh | May 29 2018, 05:07 PM Post #82 |
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Autotrophic Organism
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King of the carnivores: How bears, wolves & jaguars stack up against pumas BY IAN DICKINSON FEBRUARY 05 2018 Where the hunting grounds of apex predators overlap, there are always winners and losers. Large carnivores use their brawn to force smaller rivals off meals, or worse: to wipe out the opposition entirely. Others use strength in numbers to gain ground and resources. It's a struggle for dominance that America's second-largest cats know well, a new study shows.
Research from global wild-cat conservation organisation Panthera reveals that in almost half of their expansive range across the Americas, pumas are outmatched by at least one other large predator in the contest for food, space and resources. While the cats certainly rank at the top of the food chain, they are forced to share this position with contenders like wolves, bears and jaguars. The study found that pumas came off second best to other large predators in as much as 47.5% of their 22,735,268 square-kilometre range – a habitat that's greater than any other large land mammal in the Western Hemisphere. To figure out just how the tawny cats stacked up against their carnivorous competition, Panthera Puma Program lead scientist, Dr Mark Elbroch, and Anna Kusler, a graduate researcher with Panthera's Teton Cougar Project, combed through 60 years of scientific literature and flagged anything featuring interactions between mountain lions and other carnivores (hardly glamorous, but wildlife research isn't all darting elephants and tracking jaguars). Using 64 sources to assess dominance among pumas and other apex predators, they found that pumas are often outranked by black bears, grizzlies, wolves and jaguars, but are dominant over maned wolves and coyotes. "Wolves seem to influence pumas the strongest," Dr Elbroch writes in a blog post outlining the findings. "Wolves kill all age classes of pumas, frequently chase and harass them, and push them from their kills." Where wolves and mountain lions share ground, it's the cats that are usually forced to surrender territory, shifting their movements away from open plains, and instead skulking in forests and over rockier terrain to better evade prowling wolves. The big cats may even adjust their prey preferences, targeting deer and other animals rather than elk.
Pumas don't always settle for the subordinate position, though; the cats sometimes emerge victorious in scuffles with rivals, and have even been recorded killing their canid adversaries on occasion (usually lone wolves that lacked the competitive edge that comes with rolling in a pack). For predators jostling for top spot on the food chain, strength in numbers can make a big difference. Wolves outranked pumas in 78% of the sources turned up by Elbroch and Kusler – an impressive track record that mostly came down to a numbers advantage. Size plays a big role, too. Larger animals will almost always come out on top, which is why pumas outrank smaller mesocarnivores like ocelots and lynxes, but often lose to the far heftier bear species. But when it comes to jaguars, the contest is a little less clear-cut. "Evidence that jaguars are dominant over pumas is strongest in areas where jaguars are large and weigh considerably more than pumas, but more ambiguous in Northern Mexico, where the two species are similar in size," Elbroch explains. It's unclear if pumas actually outrank their spotted cousins (that's a research topic waiting to be explored), but the results of the study show that size certainly does matter.
Clashes for the number-one spot among America's large carnivores are complex, and there's still much we don't understand about these interactions, or the impact they have on the ecology of the species involved (and the other critters that depend on them). Puma numbers are heavily controlled through hunting in order to reduce conflict with livestock and humans – clashes that are almost inevitable for a cat with such a massive home range. For Elbroch, it's important to understand how predator dominance affects these cats before we put them in the crosshairs. "It's incredibly difficult to determine what is a 'sustainable' puma hunt and what is not – instead, puma management must be reactionary, carefully following populations to determine whether they are in decline, and rapidly adjusting hunting pressure accordingly," he argues. Until we better grasp the impact of other carnivores on mountain-lion populations, hunting should be reduced – at least in areas where wolves and grizzlies are expanding their range, says Elbroch. If the cats can't cope with competition from other predators, they certainly don't need any more from us. https://www.earthtouchnews.com/conservation/conservation/king-of-the-carnivores-how-bears-wolves-jaguars-stack-up-against-pumas/ |
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| Flesh | Jun 3 2018, 03:51 PM Post #83 |
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Autotrophic Organism
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Nebraska Game and Parks looks into holding mountain lion hunt in 2019 By Paul Hammel / World-Herald Bureau May 19, 2018 LINCOLN — The state game commission has taken the first step toward resuming mountain lion hunting, a move sure to whip up a debate about managing the big cats. The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission will hold a public hearing June 22 during a commission meeting in Ogallala, in western Nebraska. The hearing will be held at 9 a.m. at 512 E. B St., which is a Mid-Plains Community College conference room. In January, a commission biologist suggested that it was time to resume mountain lion hunting in the state because the population had increased. It was estimated that a year ago, there were 59 adult and kitten mountain lions in the state’s top lion habitat, in northwest Nebraska’s Pine Ridge area. Holding a public hearing, which was announced Friday, is the first step in resuming a hunt, which has drawn controversy in the past. State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha has unsuccessfully sought to ban mountain lion hunting in the state, calling it cruel and unnecessary. Wildlife biologists, meanwhile, maintain that hunting is an effective way to manage the population of the big cats and avoid losses of livestock and conflicts with humans. The state’s first, and only, mountain lion hunt was in 2014. Three males and two females were taken in northwest Nebraska. But hunting was called off in 2015 after 11 other big cats were killed in traps, in collisions with vehicles or by other means. In 2016, a hunting season was suspended to allow researchers to better determine the species’ population. In 2017, there wasn’t sufficient evidence to seek a hunting season. The proposed regulations, released Friday, call for hunting to be allowed in January and February of 2019, with a quota of taking only eight mountain lions, and no more than four females. A total of 320 permits would be sold via a lottery. Hunting would be allowed in two units in Dawes, Sheridan, Box Butte and Sioux Counties, and would cease once the quota is reached. If the quota isn’t reached, the proposed regulations allow for a second, “auxiliary” season to be held in March to fill the quota. The use of dogs, traps or bait would be prohibited during the regular season but dogs would be allowed during the auxiliary season. The proposed regulations would be the subject of a vote by the game commission, and then would have to be approved by the State Attorney General’s Office and Gov. Pete Ricketts. Mountain lions were first confirmed to have returned to the state in 1991. Since then, they have been documented in 42 of the state’s 93 counties, including in the metro area. One was tranquilized in the Old Mill area of Omaha in 2003. As recently as March 2017, one of the big cats was spotted in west Omaha. Only about 4 percent of Nebraska is considered suitable habitat for mountain lions. Beyond the Pine Ridge, the cats are most commonly found in the Wildcat Hills of the state’s Panhandle and in the Niobrara River valley of north-central Nebraska. Since the last lion hunt, the State Legislature, at Chambers’ urging, created a “mountain lion conservation” license plate for vehicles that has become a best-seller. Chambers has said that the popularity of the plates, first released in 2016, show that people support his efforts to ban hunting. But some purchasers have said they bought the plates because they are more attractive than the state’s regular license plate. http://www.omaha.com/outdoors/nebraska-game-and-parks-looks-into-holding-mountain-lion-hunt/article_2a87b66c-b0ff-5c81-9eb4-422b7e8d4185.html |
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2:05 AM Jul 14