One of my most cherished memories is the time I encountered a cougar while hunting alone in the backcountry wilderness of Alberta.
It was a crisp fall day, with frost still on the ground, the ice crystals quickly turning to steam as the sun rose late in the morning. I spent the sunrise sitting at my favorite vantage point overlooking a steep valley in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the white-tails that I knew were somewhere below me. Although the trees in the valley floor here seem sparse, they provide more than adequate cover for the animals that live between them to remain all but invisible to the casual observer. Every few days for the past 2 months I sat and waited, occasionally rewarded by a flash of movement followed by the seemingly impossible task of trying to track and stalk the deer once I locked on to their location. To this day, my hunting has been overwhelmingly unsuccessful in terms of bagged game. I bow hunt exclusively, and the deer I'm after are wild, alert and cunning, unlike the 'farm deer' many of my friends hunt. But truth be told, hunting is an excuse for me; a reason to go places I would have no reason to go to otherwise. The real rewards are the priceless moments, the breathtaking sights and experiences where time stands still, the chance to feel more alive than you will ever feel in a city or at a desk. Which is exactly what happened on this beautiful, frosty morning.
After the sun came up with no sign of any motion below, I decided to move around and check for any fresh sign of wildlife in the area. After walking for a few hours, I flushed a grouse and in the excitement of trying to find it again knocked over a big dead tree. I returned to the trail empty-handed and started walking further when I felt compelled to take a look behind me. To my surprise, about 60 meters back, right about where I first saw the grouse, was a mountain lion. It was sitting perpendicular to me, in the centre of the tail, with it's long, thick tail outstretched. I felt an immediate rush of excitement and slowly crouched down, locking eyes with the cat. Its gaze was casual and lazy, as if mildly curious about my presence, but not particularly surprised or impressed. Even in the moment, I was surprised to notice how unthreatened I felt and tried to act calm and casual as well. The cougar, still watching, proceeded to lie down across the trail, still sideways to me. After what was probably 20 seconds, but felt much, much longer, the cougar stood up, and smoothly and silently slipped into the forest. It wasn't until much later I realized that the trail the cougar easily stretched across was wide enough I could have driven a truck down it.
Since then, I've had a particular fondness and interest in cougars. Living in South West Calgary, every few months it seems there is an isolated sighting in or around the city, followed by silence. There is something extremely attractive about the shadowy nature of the cougar, and the wildness they represent. Even in our cities, cougars slip in and out of our awareness as easily as 'my' cougar disappeared into the wilderness.
When I heard about the opportunity to volunteer as a technician for a research project studying cougars in northern Alberta, I jumped on it immediately. The result was a weeklong field shift out of Hinton with some University of Alberta staff visiting cougar kill sites, identifying prey and collecting samples. The goal of the project is to better understand the effect of cougars on prey populations, specifically studying the relationship between cougars and the bighorn sheep.
The area around Hinton is beautiful - lots of great wilderness and crown land to explore. One of the things that stood out to me right away was the similarity of the cougar kill sites to the wilderness area where I encountered my cougar. When I brought this up with the project researchers, I learnt that cougars thrive in edge habitats, which are often created by disruptions to forests caused by things like logging or cutlines. The cougars can hunt in the cleared areas, then drag their prey into the cover of the trees to cache it and eat in privacy.
The first kill site we visited was a young moose. This particular site was highly unusual in that the cougar didn't cache the carcass by burying it under moss and branches, which is typical. Some possible reasons that this kill wasn't cached are that potentially the guts were pierced during the takedown, spoiling a lot of the meat, or that the moose died of other causes and was found by the cougar. We will never know for sure what the reason was, although the result was a particularly stinky and gruesome find!
The cougars in this study were collared, and the exact location and relative size of a kill could be predicted very accurately using the GPS data. When on a kill, the cougar will stay very near to the carcass until it is done eating, which can take over a week for something big like a moose.
These are all that remained of a small fox snack. For a small kill like this, the cougar will usually be in the area for less than a day. When sites like this come in there is a low probability of finding any remains at all, because there is not much left of the prey and also it is hard to distinguish between a small kill site and somewhere that the cougar slept or rested.
When a cougar has been in the same area for more than a few days, that means it has a kill, is denning, or is dead. The cougar sat on this site for 3-4 days, and sure enough, we found a small fawn when we got there.
From the few remains that were left it is nearly impossible to identify whether the deer was a whitetail or mule deer, especially with an individual as young as this. Hair samples we collected may go to a lab for further testing.
The research technician I was working with has been involved in this project since January. In that time, 2 of the 5 collared cougars were killed in wolf traps, both of which were male with much larger territories than the females, putting them further from town and into active trap lines. The 3 remaining individuals are female cougars with a smaller range much closer to town. The most interesting take away for me was learning about how cougars establish territories and the implications of that for management. For example, one of the cougars in this study is a small female cougar that rarely hunts anything larger than young deer and lives close to a new suburb just outside town. That cougar may be considered a 'problem animal' because she is often seen in the woods near people's houses. However, she is a mature female and has never had a history of threatening people or pets. If she were to be shot and removed from the area, it would open the territory up for a new cougar to move in, which would likely be a younger individual and may not yet have figured out it is an ungulate specialist, potentially posing more of a risk to people and other animals.
We saw plenty of sign of black bears and came across one while we were hiking. They sometimes will try to chase a cougar off of its kill, especially early in the year when they are most hungry. Recently, one of the cougars in this study actually killed a black bear that tried this!
In this picture, you can see some evidence of caching typical of a kill site.
The remains of this young elk were found about 15 meters away from the cache. This is possibly because a bear tried to steal it, but then got chased away by the cougar, who continued to stick around and pick away at it for a few more days.
For a baby moose, it's a tough world to be born into. The skull had a few big bites out of it, although the nose was intact.
Here I am holding the leg of the moose featured in the previous photo just before we took a bone marrow sample. The purpose of collecting bone marrow samples is to try and figure out how healthy the prey was at the time of the kill. This information is being used to determine if the cougars are contributing significantly to prey population decline or if they are mostly eating unhealthy animals that would die soon anyway.
Being involved in this project, even in such a small way, was a powerful experience. The themes and controversies around conservation and management of cougars are stories that are repeated around the world with other apex predators, such as orcas, wolves, and tigers. Research like this is a big part of the solution, as it gives us the data and information to make smart management decisions. However, because these decisions affect so many different interest groups, public awareness of these issues and the research being done is also critical.
It was a crisp fall day, with frost still on the ground, the ice crystals quickly turning to steam as the sun rose late in the morning. I spent the sunrise sitting at my favorite vantage point overlooking a steep valley in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the white-tails that I knew were somewhere below me. Although the trees in the valley floor here seem sparse, they provide more than adequate cover for the animals that live between them to remain all but invisible to the casual observer. Every few days for the past 2 months I sat and waited, occasionally rewarded by a flash of movement followed by the seemingly impossible task of trying to track and stalk the deer once I locked on to their location. To this day, my hunting has been overwhelmingly unsuccessful in terms of bagged game. I bow hunt exclusively, and the deer I'm after are wild, alert and cunning, unlike the 'farm deer' many of my friends hunt. But truth be told, hunting is an excuse for me; a reason to go places I would have no reason to go to otherwise. The real rewards are the priceless moments, the breathtaking sights and experiences where time stands still, the chance to feel more alive than you will ever feel in a city or at a desk. Which is exactly what happened on this beautiful, frosty morning.
After the sun came up with no sign of any motion below, I decided to move around and check for any fresh sign of wildlife in the area. After walking for a few hours, I flushed a grouse and in the excitement of trying to find it again knocked over a big dead tree. I returned to the trail empty-handed and started walking further when I felt compelled to take a look behind me. To my surprise, about 60 meters back, right about where I first saw the grouse, was a mountain lion. It was sitting perpendicular to me, in the centre of the tail, with it's long, thick tail outstretched. I felt an immediate rush of excitement and slowly crouched down, locking eyes with the cat. Its gaze was casual and lazy, as if mildly curious about my presence, but not particularly surprised or impressed. Even in the moment, I was surprised to notice how unthreatened I felt and tried to act calm and casual as well. The cougar, still watching, proceeded to lie down across the trail, still sideways to me. After what was probably 20 seconds, but felt much, much longer, the cougar stood up, and smoothly and silently slipped into the forest. It wasn't until much later I realized that the trail the cougar easily stretched across was wide enough I could have driven a truck down it.
Since then, I've had a particular fondness and interest in cougars. Living in South West Calgary, every few months it seems there is an isolated sighting in or around the city, followed by silence. There is something extremely attractive about the shadowy nature of the cougar, and the wildness they represent. Even in our cities, cougars slip in and out of our awareness as easily as 'my' cougar disappeared into the wilderness.
When I heard about the opportunity to volunteer as a technician for a research project studying cougars in northern Alberta, I jumped on it immediately. The result was a weeklong field shift out of Hinton with some University of Alberta staff visiting cougar kill sites, identifying prey and collecting samples. The goal of the project is to better understand the effect of cougars on prey populations, specifically studying the relationship between cougars and the bighorn sheep.
The area around Hinton is beautiful - lots of great wilderness and crown land to explore. One of the things that stood out to me right away was the similarity of the cougar kill sites to the wilderness area where I encountered my cougar. When I brought this up with the project researchers, I learnt that cougars thrive in edge habitats, which are often created by disruptions to forests caused by things like logging or cutlines. The cougars can hunt in the cleared areas, then drag their prey into the cover of the trees to cache it and eat in privacy.
The first kill site we visited was a young moose. This particular site was highly unusual in that the cougar didn't cache the carcass by burying it under moss and branches, which is typical. Some possible reasons that this kill wasn't cached are that potentially the guts were pierced during the takedown, spoiling a lot of the meat, or that the moose died of other causes and was found by the cougar. We will never know for sure what the reason was, although the result was a particularly stinky and gruesome find!
The cougars in this study were collared, and the exact location and relative size of a kill could be predicted very accurately using the GPS data. When on a kill, the cougar will stay very near to the carcass until it is done eating, which can take over a week for something big like a moose.
These are all that remained of a small fox snack. For a small kill like this, the cougar will usually be in the area for less than a day. When sites like this come in there is a low probability of finding any remains at all, because there is not much left of the prey and also it is hard to distinguish between a small kill site and somewhere that the cougar slept or rested.
When a cougar has been in the same area for more than a few days, that means it has a kill, is denning, or is dead. The cougar sat on this site for 3-4 days, and sure enough, we found a small fawn when we got there.
From the few remains that were left it is nearly impossible to identify whether the deer was a whitetail or mule deer, especially with an individual as young as this. Hair samples we collected may go to a lab for further testing.
The research technician I was working with has been involved in this project since January. In that time, 2 of the 5 collared cougars were killed in wolf traps, both of which were male with much larger territories than the females, putting them further from town and into active trap lines. The 3 remaining individuals are female cougars with a smaller range much closer to town. The most interesting take away for me was learning about how cougars establish territories and the implications of that for management. For example, one of the cougars in this study is a small female cougar that rarely hunts anything larger than young deer and lives close to a new suburb just outside town. That cougar may be considered a 'problem animal' because she is often seen in the woods near people's houses. However, she is a mature female and has never had a history of threatening people or pets. If she were to be shot and removed from the area, it would open the territory up for a new cougar to move in, which would likely be a younger individual and may not yet have figured out it is an ungulate specialist, potentially posing more of a risk to people and other animals.
We saw plenty of sign of black bears and came across one while we were hiking. They sometimes will try to chase a cougar off of its kill, especially early in the year when they are most hungry. Recently, one of the cougars in this study actually killed a black bear that tried this!
In this picture, you can see some evidence of caching typical of a kill site.
The remains of this young elk were found about 15 meters away from the cache. This is possibly because a bear tried to steal it, but then got chased away by the cougar, who continued to stick around and pick away at it for a few more days.
For a baby moose, it's a tough world to be born into. The skull had a few big bites out of it, although the nose was intact.
Here I am holding the leg of the moose featured in the previous photo just before we took a bone marrow sample. The purpose of collecting bone marrow samples is to try and figure out how healthy the prey was at the time of the kill. This information is being used to determine if the cougars are contributing significantly to prey population decline or if they are mostly eating unhealthy animals that would die soon anyway.
Being involved in this project, even in such a small way, was a powerful experience. The themes and controversies around conservation and management of cougars are stories that are repeated around the world with other apex predators, such as orcas, wolves, and tigers. Research like this is a big part of the solution, as it gives us the data and information to make smart management decisions. However, because these decisions affect so many different interest groups, public awareness of these issues and the research being done is also critical.
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