Showing posts with label mountain lion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mountain lion. Show all posts

Saturday, 9 December 2023

Poignant and emotive picture of a young mountain lion in Wyoming gets my juices flowing

Wyoming is the 10th largest state in the United States but it has a tiny human population at just under 600,000 people. This is about one-tenth of the population of Colorado, regarded as a similar state.

Turning to this photograph, which I really like, I think the lack of humans in Wyoming comes into its own with respect to the mountain lion and other wildlife.

A young mountain lion pads across a deck overlooking Star Valley in November 2023. (Marti Halverson)

This photograph taken I believe with an iPhone which I also think is relevant because the quality is excellent for a phone camera, shows that wide-open space of Wyoming with a sprawled out human settlement.

It is unsurprising to me that this sub-adult puma has meandered onto the decking of a house overlooking the valley. No doubt this extended and dispersed human settlement is on mountain lion territory.

It is not uncommon for humans to build properties on the home ranges of mountain lions which is going to lead to human-puma conflict.

Fortunately, there was no conflict in this instance. The property owner Marti Halverson called up a local houndsman and asked them to bring a dog to encourage the mountain lion to disappear up the valley which they kindly did.

Apparently the young puma's mother was nearby. Last summer she was photographed with her adult female cubs but this time the mother was alone. It appears that the kids had grown up and this young mountain lion was exploring, learning to be independent. She had just been weaned I expect.

It can be a dangerous time especially for male mountain lions who have to find their home range sometimes huge distances from their natal range. And they can be harmed in that discovery and journey to their new home. They can be harmed by hunters or other mountain lions i.e. resident mountain lions who want to protect their home range.

What I like about this photograph is that it really highlights beautifully how the mountain lion fits in with the human-made environment in a state where nature still has the upper hand. Where the mountain lion can roam I suspect pretty freely but there is this ever present human danger.

This young mountain lion doesn't know about that danger. They don't understand how dangerous humans can be and simply finds this house interesting to explore. And behind, as mentioned, we have this beautiful vista of this wide valley and in the distance the mountains.

To people in Europe, who live in high density population places, this kind of wide-open vista with plenty of space is a breath of fresh air. To me it looks wonderful. I think I would like to live in this home and I would have loved to have photographed this beautiful mountain line. I wish her well in her life's journey.

A great danger for her will be humans with rifles and dogs because hunting mountain lion hunting is allowed in the state of Wyoming. They can be hunted with all legal firearms and archery equipment. That's her danger. I wish it wasn't the case. I can't tell you how much I hate hunters and the hunting of beautiful wild animals for the pleasure; for the fun of it. It doesn't add up to me at all.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Wednesday, 8 February 2023

What is the native American word for 'panther'?

Realistically, you can't answer the question in the title. I will tell you why. There are hundreds of different Native American tribes and languages. The native-languages.org website lists the most popular Native American languages of which there are 30. 

These are the most popular but, as mentioned, there are far more. It is simply impractical and I would suggest impossible to find out how these Native Americans used or still do refer to the mountain lion in their own language.

Cree man and puma
Image: MikeB

I'm going to presume that the word "panther" in this context is a reference to the mountain lion which is better described as the "puma". This is the most scientific term.

The puma has the most names in any case, not including Native American languages, of all the wild cat species. This is a very complicated picture.

Let's take one of the native languages of the Americas: Cree. I have selected them at random. It is spoken by more than 70,000 people across southern Canada and into Montana. It is an Algonquian language apparently. And there are five major Cree dialects. 

The Cree are Canada's largest native group with 200,000 registered members. There are dozens of self-government nations.

The most popular or commonly spoken native language is Quechua. There are approximately 8 million speakers and they live in the Andean region of South America. It is the language of the Inca empire of Peru.

Interestingly, the official name of the mountain lion, as mentioned, the puma, is a word which comes from the Quechua language.

The name puma first appeared in 1609 when Garcilasso de la Vega, the son of a Spanish conquistador and an Incan Princess wrote, "Lions are met with, though they are not so large not so fierce as those of Africa. The Indians call them Puma." 

The AI computer ChatGPT responds to the question in the title as follows:

"The native American word for panther varies among different indigenous cultures. Some common words for panther include "puma" or "cougar" in the Americas, and "mountain lion" in some western tribes. In some Eastern tribes, it's referred to as "catamount." The exact word used for panther can also depend on the specific language and dialect of the indigenous culture."
I thought that it is wasn't very helpful 😎.

Monday, 10 October 2022

Cougars in Australia? I think not.

In the news today there is the story of a "giant cat spotted in Western Australia". It was seen near the town of Lancelin, Western Australia. A security camera captured the animal in the distance. The camera appears to be on the property of Wayne and Helen Gardiner. They say that the cat was about 50-60 m away.

Is this a CCTV image of a mountain lion (puma) in Australia?
Is this a CCTV image of a mountain lion (puma) in Australia? No, is my response. Image: Mr and Mrs Gardiner and ABC News.

As usual, the image quality is very poor. In every single photograph of an unusual wild cat sighting the image quality is very poor which makes it impossible to be certain about what we are looking at (but we can almost always guess accurately). This is highly convenient!

It is said that people have occasionally reported sightings of mountain lions in Australia because some believe that the cat was brought over by the US during World War II as a mascot! Sounds plausible? I don't think so.

If and when they are seen it is normally in Western Australia. There has been at least one "compelling report" made annually.

As expected, nobody in Australia has ever captured a mountain lion on a camera in decent quality.

This is a news media story. If you look at the cat carefully and view it in relation to the shrubbery behind it and in front of it, we can see right away that it is not a mountain lion. 

The plants in front of the cat are probably about 15-20 inches high. That is a good way to scale the size of this cat which appears to be around 17 inches tall to the shoulder which would represent the size of a very large feral cat.

We know that there are very large feral cats in Australia. Sometimes they can be unusually large because they are feeding on an abundance of prey animals. Therefore, over a long period of time, the feral cats of Australia have evolved to be much larger than your normal feral cat in other parts of the world. It is said that they are twice the normal size.

The mountain lion is one of the world's biggest cats. They are clearly much smaller than the Bengal tiger for instance but still substantially larger than the cat we see in the image.

And if they genuinely were mountain lions in Western Australia you would think that somebody would have captured the animal on camera at least once since World War II! It is difficult to miss such a large cat and certainly one which is so definitively out of place in Australia.

There are no wild cat species living on the Australian continent. There never has been because the continent drifted away from the mainland before wild cat species on the mainland had a chance to travel to the area of the world that became Australia. In short, there was a water barrier and there still is between what I call the 'mainland' and the Australian continent which is an island.

Saturday, 11 December 2021

Standoff between cougars and coyotes. Pictures.

Standoff between pumas and coyotes. Photos by USFWS Mountain Prairie
Standoff between pumas and coyotes. Photos by USFWS Mountain Prairie.

These are three of a series of photographs of two young mountain lions seeking refuge on a large wooden fence from five coyotes. You can gauge the balance of power between these species of animal from the photographs. Five coyotes trump two juvenile pumas. I guess 5 coyotes might not trump 2 adult pumas. It is all about power and authority, one over the other. Sounds like human stuff and it is.

The obvious has happened. The young cougars have used their jumping and climbing skills to distance themselves from coyotes and to seek a sanctuary.

I don't know how it was resolved. I suspect the coyotes disappeared eventually and the cougars came down.

These photographs were, in fact, published some time ago. However, I noticed this short post was languishing as a draft on the main website for some time so I think it is worthy enough to publish on this subdomain site.

Puma kills are often scavenged by other animals including: bears, pigs, wolves, bobcats, foxes and coyotes. This is despite the fact that the mountain lion can sometimes rest near their cached prey. Therefore, a scavenger risks being attacked by the mountain lion. Clearly a mountain lion can kill a coyote but in the numbers that you see in the photograph and when the mountain lion is a subadult, it is a different kettle of fish.

Tuesday, 3 August 2021

Do mountain lions eat coyotes?

Mountain lions eat pretty much anything that is available and their prey animals range in size from mice to moose. If an animal puts itself in a vulnerable position mountain lions will try and kill it but a mountain lion hurt and incapacitated in an attack on a prey animal will die. Therefore, they will be selective. 

Mountain lion caught in camera trap by National Park Services AP
Mountain lion caught in camera trap by National Park Services AP.

And if there are good alternatives to coyotes, I would suggest that they will select those animals instead. The coyote is a resourceful animal. The point I'm getting to is that the excellent reference book that I have on the prey animals that the mountain lion eats does not specify coyotes. They do specify "other carnivores" as prey animals.

I'm going to have to stick my neck out and say that mountain lions will, on occasion, eat coyotes when the opportunity arises but they will select the easiest prey they can find as a priority which will include mule deer, white-tailed deer, moose, unclassified deer, elk, livestock and so on.

There are very, very few mountain lion attacks on people in the entire history of humans' relationship with the animal and when they occur it is usually a child or a woman. A mother might be defending her cubs. They don't attack humans to eat. Americans are infinitely more likely to die of a domestic dog attack than a puma attack.

Wednesday, 28 July 2021

You can't keep a cougar or a tiger as a pet in Marysville, Michigan, USA

I think it's great that a city (I think we can call it a city) with about 9,600 residents can make a law (an ordinance in the USA) which bans cougars and tigers as pets. They've also banned chickens and coyotes as pets but it is the cougars and tigers which interest me more. 

Marysville
Marysville. Photo in public domain.

It's hard to imagine a cougar or a tiger being a good pet but some Americans do like to live with very exotic pets. They are not that uncommon. Perhaps the best-known celebrity to have a big cat pet is Tippi Hedren, the mother of Melanie Griffith (Hedren is still alive at the date of this post - she is 91). They kept a lion called Neil in the home. He looks truly domesticated in the photographs. But I believe that wild cats never make the same sort of pet as a domestic cat.

Back to Marysville. This town is about 65 miles north-east of Detroit. The new ordinance comes into effect in mid-August. It comes after some residents complained about neighbours owning chickens and roosters who crowed. I guess they went a bit further than banning roosters and chickens. The current ordinance bans "animals or domestic fowl within the city except dogs, cats, birds, fowl, or animals commonly classified as pets".

So, they've tightened up what is and what isn't allowed to be kept as a pet. And they have decided that chickens should be regarded as livestock and they do not belong in the city but on farms in the countryside.

Comment: I'm not sure about banning chickens as pets because I've seen some very nice relationships between kids and chickens. However, I'm certain that banning tigers and mountain lions as pets is an excellent idea. Although I would doubt that there were many tigers in their community! In fact, there must be none but it's nice to take proactive steps to prevent any possibility of that happening in the future.

Wednesday, 7 July 2021

Green bridge for pumas traversing California's Freeway 101 will be world's biggest

NEWS AND COMMENT - LOS ANGELES, CALIF., USA: California plans to build the world's biggest animal bridge. It will traverse California's Freeway 101 which is adjacent to the Santa Monica Mountains. A conservation group is raising the $65 million to build it. It'll be called the Liberty Canyon Wildlife Crossing. It will be 65 m long and 50 m wide.

Green bridge for pumas traversing California's Freeway 101 will be world's biggest
 Green bridge for pumas traversing California's Freeway 101 will be world's biggest. Image in public domain.

The bridge will have high fencing and "sound walls" which I presume means walls which absorb the sound to make the crossing more amenable to the mountain lions. I guess they need to be encouraged to use it. 

At the moment the highway divides the habitat and distribution of the mountain lion in this area of America. When you have fragmentation of the distribution of a wild cat species like this you end up with inbreeding because the population size is too small to maintain a healthy genetic diversity. This can lead to sterile males which in turn further damages the population size.

No doubt, the conservationists have recommended this bridge as a matter of urgency. It's going to be built by the California Department of Transportation and is largely funded through private donations. Apparently, there's no state budget for it. New legislation will provide for state funding of wildlife crossings such as this one in the future. To date, National Wildlife Federation has secured $38 million.

CLICK FOR A RANGE OF PAGES ON THE MOUNTAIN LION

101 Freeway carries 300,000 cars daily which presents an impenetrable barrier to mountain lions trying to cross it. When they try, they get hit by a car and killed. And to the south of the highway is the sea and to the east is Los Angeles. That's why they are trapped within this relatively small area in terms of the space required for a population of mountain lions. 

Brad Schaffer, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles said that there is a large area of open space on the other side of the freeway which leads to a very large space. The bridge will allow mountain lions to have access to that space.

In addition, the density of cars on the freeway is increasing year-on-year as there are more and more people living in the area. The trouble is that the mountain lions in this area live in a 'closed population' which is causing inbreeding, declining fertility and genetic defects. Inbreeding also reduces the immune system's effectiveness.

If they lose the mountain lion in the area it will have a cascading effect on other wildlife as this cat is the top predator. There would be more deer and overgrazing depriving smaller mammals of food. He believes that the citizens of Los Angeles are "immensely proud of these lions, of having a big carnivore right in, almost in, their midst.

That is why the bridge will be built.

Friday, 30 April 2021

Pet puma kept in a one-roomed apartment in Moscow

MOSCOW, RUSSIA-NEWS AND VIEWS: It is reported by RT.com that the owner of a one-room apartment bought a mountain lion because he was getting bored. He lives in the south-west of Moscow. He calls the cat Hercules. We are told that the two have bonded. He likes the attention that he attracts to himself when he takes his mountain lion for a walk. 

Pet puma kept in a one-roomed apartment in Moscow
Pet puma kept in a one-roomed apartment in Moscow

He has become a local celebrity in the area. Some passers-by admire it and are in awe of a puma on a lead but not everyone is happy including a pop singer and reality television show contestant Vika Daineko who is shocked. 

The man walks his large, domesticated wild cat across the way from her apartment. She wants the man and his cat banned from the area and is in the process of collecting signatures on a petition to achieve that goal. She is also going to take legal action it is reported. She is scared for the area's children.

The Russians like their cats. There are some amazing cat breeders in Russia. They do take cat breeding to a fine art with certain breeds such as the Maine Coon and the hairless cats.

Note: videos on this site are typically made by people other than me and held on YouTube servers or the servers of other businesses (not the server storing this website). Sometimes the videos are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened I apologise but I have no control over it.

You do not have to be an animal advocate to see the unsuitability of this arrangement. Some people might say that if the puma was about to be euthanized then the man is doing a favour and improving cat welfare but that is unlikely to be the reason why he ended up with this mountain lion. He says he was bored so be adopted one to alleviate the boredom; but the problem is wider than that.

It is also about the local authorities and a lack of oversight. The authorities should have prevented this happening. It would appear that you don't need a licence to adopt a large wild cat in Russua; an exotic animal and one unsuited to flat dwelling.

In the UK you would have to apply for a licence and demonstrate that you have the ability to look after a mountain lion and that you have the right facilities. There would be inspections of paperwork and facilities if they granted a licence. In this instance, if this man had applied for a licence in the UK it would have been rejected, quite obviously. Therefore, I'm back to my original point which is that the authorities are ultimately to blame for a lax attitude leading to this unsatisfactory arrangement.

I don't like to see it happening. How did this mountain lion get into Russia in the first place? Who imported the animal? It must have been imported because there are no mountain lions in Russia. It must come from America. Perhaps it belonged to a zoo or there is somebody in America exporting mountain lions to Russia. If that is happening then there is a lax attitude in America towards the exportation of wild cat species such as this puma. A lot of this is to do with the law, the enforcement of the law or the lack of both. Those are the root causes of this problem.

Saturday, 20 February 2021

Are felines nocturnal?

The answer to the question depends upon the species of feline that you are referring to and the circumstances under which they are living. There is no simple black-and-white answer to the question. For example, the domestic cat tends to be nocturnal or a better description is crepuscular which means active at dawn and dusk when prey is about.

Tiger at night. This is not real because there are no white tigers in the wild
Tiger at night. This is not real because there are no white tigers in the wild. Photo: Pixabay.

But domestic cats are also active during the daytime sometimes. They just tend to be more active when daylight is subdued or it is dark. But the domestic cat is only one species of about 36 (the number of cat species is still contentious). I'm not going to go through every single wild cat species to tell you whether they are nocturnal or not but I'll mention one or two to give you an idea about what I'm talking about.

The American bobcat is distributed across America except for a 'hole' in the middle of it near the Great Lakes so it is a very well known wild cat. Bobcats are primarily crepuscular like the domestic cat. They are most active in the few hours before and after sunset and sunrise. There are exceptions

Some studies have found that bobcats are mainly nocturnal while other reports have found that they may be active at any time of the day or that they are arrhythmic (without any pattern or rhythm). In some places bobcats are more active during the daytime in winter because they must spend more time searching for food. In essence it would seem that a bobcat's activity coincides with the activity of the animals that it hunts. That makes sense. As I said the answer to the question the title has to be nuanced.

Canada lynx
Canada lynx. Photo: Pixabay.


Taking another well-known medium-sized wild cat species living in North America, the Canada lynx, this cat is primarily nocturnal although they may be seen moving about at any time of the day. The animals that they mainly prey upon, snowshoe hares, are basically nocturnal which is why the Canada lynx is also mainly nocturnal. Once again you can see that the activity of the cat is dependent upon the activity of the prey.

The ocelot is a very well known small to medium-sized wildcat. Its coat has made the coats of many rich and famous people in the past. They are primarily nocturnal but they also hunt during the daytime especially when the weather is cloudy and rainy. They may be entirely nocturnal in areas where they are hunted by people. That sentence would apply to the past in America because as far as I'm aware they are no longer hunted by people because they are protected in North America if they are still extant on that continent.

The mountain lion lives in both North America and South America. They have a huge range in terms of distribution. These cats can be found hunting at any time of the day or night. In most areas the peak activity is reported to be around dawn and dusk i.e. crepuscular. They rest during the middle of the day. Once again their activity levels coincide with that of their major prey animals. Therefore it is seasonal and it depends upon where they live. For example, in the Idaho Primitive Area they are active during daytime to hunt ground squirrels. Where humans are more active such as where they are logging timber, mountain lions avoid them by being more active at night.

The concept of wild cats being more active at night to avoid people is also apparent with leopards. And you will find that lions also behave like this when necessary. They tend to avoid people by becoming nocturnal. Lions are apparently primarily nocturnal but there are no hard and fast rules as mentioned. It depends on the availability of prey animals to kill to eat and the type of habitat where they live which provides cover when stalking. Activity levels also depend upon the seasons and temperatures. And lastly it depends upon whether they are disturbed by people.

There have been reports of lions becoming nocturnal to avoid trophy hunters killing them. In the Serengeti there are two major peaks of activity, one of which is just after dark and the other between two and four in the morning.

Lastly, as I'm just giving you an idea as to whether cats are nocturnal or not, I will mention the tiger. Once again, in response to the activity of people, in certain parts of the world they have become totally nocturnal. If they are undisturbed by people they can be seen to hunt at any time of the day or night. Once again, also, their activity levels depend upon the activity of their prey animals. In other words it mirrors the activity patterns of the animals that they kill to eat. For example, in Chitwan National Park both male and female tigers mainly travelled at night for about 10 to 12 hours.

If you want to read more about the wild cat species and whether they are nocturnal or not then I would suggest that you search for those details on the main website which you can access by clicking here.

Saturday, 13 February 2021

How can cats jump so high?

The answer to the question is all about mechanics and muscles. The domestic cat and indeed the wild cats have lots of fast-twitch fatiguing muscle cells. These cells are designed to propel the animal quickly; to allow the animal to accelerate quickly, but they're not very good at prolonged effort because they tire. The cat is a sprinter rather than a long-distance runner such as the African wild dog, mule or horse.

The puma is perhaps the best jumper of the large wild cat species
The puma is perhaps the best jumper of the large wild cat species. Image: PoC.

The second reason is all about the mechanics, the leg bones, particularly the hind leg bones of the domestic cat which are long. The muscles working to move these long levers allow the cat to jump so high. The concept of long levers applying a stronger force than short levers can be seen in bolt cutters. They have long handles. And if you want to unscrew a nut which is rusted in or very stiff, if you use a long spanner you will be more successful than if you use a short one.

And of course the hindquarters of a domestic cat and the other cats such as the mountain lion are very powerful. When these muscles contract quickly combined with long levers the cat is propelled forward either to attack an animal or leap upwards. 

There is also the matter of power-to-weight ratio. The heavier cats will be less good at jumping than the lighter species. The lion, for instance, is not a great jumper relative to the leopard which is considerably lighter.

The lion is built to grab hold of large prey and subdue them. This is why their arms (forelegs) are immensely strong much like the tiger's. This power-to-weight ratio is best seen in the caracal which is a medium-sized wild cat species. This is the cat that jumps the highest. They have an ideal power-to-weight ratio. The picture below is of a caracal catching or trying to catch a bird (or an object thrown by someone to simulate a bird) in flight:

Caracal leaping to catch a bird in flight
Caracal leaping to catch a bird in flight. Picture in public domain.

All the medium-sized cats are probably more adept at jumping vertically than the big cats. There is too much inertia to overcome in a big cat and the power-to-weight ratio is not as good as for the smaller species.

And one of the factor which may play a role as to why cats can jump so high is the floating shoulder. The forelimbs are connected to the rest of the body by muscle. The cats clavicle floats and is anchored by muscle. This allows cats to lengthen their stride and it enhances the range of motions that cats have. This indirectly helps a cat to jump well.

The cat's foot is elongated and it looks like a leg bone but it isn't. At the end are the toes and cats walk on their toes because they are digitigrades. I would argue that this also adds to the leverage that a domestic cat has which once again supports the ability to jump high and horizontally over long distances.

The video on this page is of a female F1 Savannah cat whose name is Magic. I don't know whether she is alive still but at the time she was the tallest domestic cat to the shoulder in the world. Savannah cats of this type i.e. first filials have a serval father and the serval has the longest legs to body size of all the wild cats. That's why the F1 Savannah cat is such a fantastic upwards jumper. Once again it's about leverage using long levers.

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