Mountain Lions, Dogs, and Lethal Force

This mountain lion was captured and tagged in Boulder in October 2021.
Relocated to the mountains, it was killed in December 2022 after attacking dogs.
(Photo: Boulder Police Dept, via the Colorado Sun)

In 2003, Colorado journalist David Baron published The Beast in the Garden: The True Story of a Predator's Deadly Return to Suburban America.

Its topic was human-lion relations on the northern Front Range of Colorado, where cities bump into the mountains, with a focus on Boulder County. (A National Public Radio reporter, Barron wrote that book while on a fellowship in environmental journalism at CU-Boulder.)

As Colorado moved away from treating lions as "varmints" with a bounty on their heads to game animals with a limited "take" allowed, populations had rebounded. Boulder, like many other places, had a thriving herd of in-town mule deer, especially on its western edge, and lions had followed the deer — as they do. (The usual figure you hear is that an adult mountain lion will kill a deer every seven to ten days, feeding on the carcass while it is still relatively fresh.)

The death of Idaho Springs high-school athlete Scott Lancaster, ambushed by a lion in 1991 while training for the cross-country running team, was the first recorded human kill in Colorado.

(Here is a list of post-1890 fatal lion attacks in North America, which is undoubtedly incomplete, especially as regards the US-Mexico border region.)

The attack on the young runner is key to Baron's book, as his website explains:

Here, in a spellbinding tale of man and beast that recalls, only in nonfiction form, Peter Benchley’s thriller Jaws, award-winning journalist David Baron chronicles Boulder’s struggles to coexist with its wild neighbors and reconstructs the paved-with-good-intentions path that led to Colorado’s first recorded fatal mountain lion attack. The book reveals the subtle yet powerful ways in which human actions are altering wildlife behavior.

My takeaway from Baron's book was that the Colorado Division of Wildlife (as it was then called) was willing to try some active "management" of suburban and exurban mountain lions, but the feedback that they got from public meetings leaned toward "Please don't kill them. We can learn to co-exist."

Have things changed? A headline in the online Colorado Sun reads, "Mountain lions killed 15 dogs in 30 days near a Colorado town. Attacks continued and now a lion is dead."

Subhead: "People living in neighborhoods around Nederland wonder why Colorado Parks and Wildlife can’t do more to stop attacks on their pets".

In response, Sam Peterson, CPW’s Area 2 Boulder South District wildlife manager, held a meeting at the Nederland community center. Most of it focused on how to peacefully coexist with lions, but that’s not what the 140 people who attended were after. They wanted to know why lions were hiding out under porches, grabbing 100-pound Dobermans and 70-pound Labs and stalking dogs on leashes held by humans.

So the debate continues: Active measures versus careful co-existence, with residents coming down on both side and CPW reluctant — for both philosophical and budgetary reasons — to commit to sending marksmen and hounds after every mountain lion seen eyeing a dog.

Some Nederland-area residents now do their outdoor chores with firearms handy. But there's a catch. Under Colorado's "nuisance wildlife" laws (link is a PDF file),  a dog is not worth as much as a goat, for example, if the goat is classified as "livestock" and not a "pet."

• Black bears and mountain lions CAN NOT be destroyed when they are causing damage to personal property, including pets. 

• Black bears and mountain lions CAN be killed when it is NECESSARY to prevent them from inflicting death, damage or injury to livestock, human life, real property, or a motor vehicle. Any wildlife killed shall remain the property of the state, and such killing shall be reported to the division within five days. “Real property” means land and generally whatever is erected or growing upon or affixed to land. (Note: “Personal Property” means everything that is subject to ownership, other than real estate. Personal property includes moveable and tangible things such as pets, furniture and merchandise.)

In the Colorado Sun article, we see what happens when someone uses lethal force — sometimes:

After being driven away from one dog attack, a lion moved on to the next house:

The large, reddish cat walked up a neighbor’s driveway. . .  Several minutes later [the residents] heard several gunshots. CPW’s deputy regional manager Kristin Cannon filled in the rest of the story. 

Cannon says the lion attacked a dog at a home 400 yards from [the first attack]  and that during the attack, the dog’s owner killed the lion. She reiterated what Peterson had said, that it’s illegal to kill a lion to protect a pet but that in this instance CPW won’t be pressing charges due to “the totality of the circumstances.” 

Which is to say that the law is black-and-white but the wildlfe officers have a lot of discretion based on circumstances and the shooter's attitude. In my small experience, I have seen them usually avoid charging a shooter, which might put them in court being cross-examined over whether the bear was in the "personal property" garbage can or trying to break into the "real property" house. And there are the public-relations aspects.

But the option to charge someone is always there, beloved dog or not.

Deer or Dogs: Mountain Lions Like Them Both

A lion who did not understand the concept of "focal length" on an inexpensive trail cam.

The Vail Daily reminds ski-country residents and visitors that mountain lions can be just about anywhere in winter time. Two big attractors are "town deer" and loose dogs.

“In Eagle, Vail and Edwards, deer live in everybody’s backyards,” said Colorado Parks and Wildlife District Wildlife Manager Matt Yamashita. “That’s a major contribution to human and lion conflict. Mountain lions don’t discriminate between food sources. If there’s a deer there one day and a dog the other, it’s all the same to them.”

* * * 

“When people call about mountain lions, their biggest concern is how to keep themselves, their families, their pets safe,” Yamashita said. “Most activity we see in Eagle County is tied to dogs, specifically, dogs off leash. They’ll stalk dogs. When dogs are in danger, they’ll instinctively retreat to their owners. Dogs are the No. 1 instigator for human-lion interactions. If people could be cognizant of that, we’d have fewer conflicts.”

You always hear that a lion's territory is 70–100 square miles (18,000–25,900 ha). But territories do overlap.

Where Is the Mountain Lion in This Photo?

Photo: US Fish and Wildlife Service

 

The elk triggered a scout camera at Rio Mora National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. But someone else was watching. Can you see the mountain lion? 

It helps to enlarge the photo.

Some of the Fawns Survived

That weird-looking eye is just a reflecton from the cat's tapetum lucidum.

Mule deer does here drop their fawns in June. Last winter, we had a little group of three does and two yearlings that hung around in the forest near the house. 

On July 8th, one of my trail cameras up behind the house picked up this mountain lion right in the area that the mulie does favored. 

A neighbor mentioned that so-and-so had a seen a lion (that person being a sort of inept but trigger-happy back-to-the-lander whose animals escape, are killed by his own dogs, or whatever), while someone else had a seen a lion quite near our house in a different direction.

I said "Hmm" and did not mention my photograph. No point in advertising. But I wondered if she (?) had nabbled any fawns.

We kept seeing the two yearlings — now approaching sexual maturity — off and on, but not the three does. Presumably they were hiding their fawns in high grass or brush, and feeding warily.

Finally on September 10th my wife and I were eating supper outdoors on the porch — a prime deer-spotting time — when we saw two fawns grazing on what we call "the old road," which is an 1870s stage road-turned-pre-1960s ranch road turned grassy strip in the oak brush.

So two made it. There could have been as many as six fawns, since mulie does often drop twins. But I wonder how many that lion got. They have to eat too.

UPDATE: I checked a different camera today (15 Sept.), about four hundred yards from the house. It looks like our female (?) lion is still hanging around — she was there on the 10th even as M. and I were observing the fawns.

A Mountain Lion in the Morning

 

I hung this scout camera on May 9th at a little seep that I call "Camera Trap Spring." (You won't find that name on Google Earth, not if I can help it.)

It's in little bowl in the foothills about 45 minutes' walk from my house, but a walk that involves scaling a step ridge, negotiating a small talus slope, and winding through a lot of oak brush. 

The camera also recorded turkeys, bears, deer, elk, and gray foxes, all drawn by a tiny water source that kept running through this drought summer. When I finally got motivated to retrieve the camera today (the batteries had died in mid-July), I was truly surprised to find water there. That probably explains the bear with a muddy rump that was captured on another camera on my side of the ridge—if they can't do more, bears like to just plop their butts down in the water.

When I stand up at the spring, I can see houses, maybe hear a far-off dog bark, and watch traffic moving on the state highway. Yet because there is no vehicular access—and it's a serious hike in—the animals act undisturbed, like this cat having a drink at 8:49 a.m., no fear at all.

The camera recorded some deer there two hours earlier. I wonder if he was thirsty after a meal.

Do Your Duty as a Hominin!

Mountain lion — or cougar, if you prefer. (Colorado Parks and Wildlife)

I have had some mountain lion encounters, none of them this bad, so permit me some second-guessing. Everyone does it in regard to predator attacks.

Washington state mountain biker Isaac Sederbaum, the initial victim, having then seen his companion attacked by a lion, "later told the authorities that he had to travel about two miles before getting a cellphone signal and calling 911."

Isn't it your duty as a hominin to pick up a heavy stick and go full-on Angry Ape at the cat? They are ambush predators, so they avoid face-to-face showdowns. That might have worked.

But no. Got to make that 911 call. And eventually the lion is tracked with dogs and shot, as so often happens.

Ten thousand ancestors sadly shake their heads.

* * * 

True story: my friends the wildlife rehabilitators had a somewhat parallel experience. She was attacked by a lion inside an enclosure who grabbed her by the head. Her husband was not far away, and as he said, more or less, "I tried to kick a forty-yard field goal with that lion's head as the football."

Then he pulled her to safety, closed the gate, and got her some medical help. Apparently she was a celebrity at the hospital. They don't get to see big-predator injuries very often in Pueblo, Colorado, so all the docs were curious.

What Would a Mountain Lion Eat for Thanksgiving?

A wintry view of the riparian area in or near Santa Ana Pueblo,
photographed from Amtrak's Southwest Chief on November 20th.

Brokenleg (Pueblo of Santa Ana DNR)

Deer, you say? That might be a good answer, insofar as a common formula is that an adult must eat a deer-size animal every week to ten days. But down on the Rio Grande north of Albuquerque, researchers at the Pueblo of Santa Ana Department of Natural Resources collared and tracked one male who specialized in badgers.

And here I thought badgers were difficult game for any predator, given their ferocity and ability to dig in.

The lion they called Brokenleg (because of a visible old fractured that had healed and calcified) was monitored for 15 months. Here is what he killed for food:

He was no cripple, as you can see: he took down 17 elk as well.

Brokenleg was one of six lions that the pueblo's Department of Natural Resources collared and tracked. On their Facebook page, they wrote,

We recently posted a graph of Brokenleg's kills that generated a lot of great questions and responses. This graph might do the same and is intended to show the varied diet of 5 lions (3 males and 2 females) that we GPS-collared and followed over variable time spans. The 3 males (months collared in parenthesis) are Big Tom (6), Brokenleg (17), and Lefty (15). The 2 females are Notch (12) and Little Girl (16). We documented 155 kills across 20 species, which are color-coded for individual lions. While Brokenleg's dataset is mostly complete, there are gaps in the other lion datasets because we did not have permission to enter onto some lands to verify kills. Despite not having a complete dataset for all lion kills, the graph clearly illustrates the varied diet of the 5 individual lions. Furthermore, we believe that Big Tom and Notch probably killed at least 15 more feral horses based on kill locations and amount of time at kill site, but because we didn't have permission to verify the kills, we can't confirm this. This is an ongoing project, so we expect we will add some species to the list in the future. (October 14, 2019)

The pueblo controls 73,000 acres, and I have always been told that a lion in the Rockies hunts  territory of 70–100 square miles (640 ac. per square mile). But since mountain lions do not care about human boundaries, obviously a number of them hunt partly on and partly off the pueblo lands. And it is risky to be a badger, a coyote, or a feral horse along the Rio Grande.

Attacked on the Trail by a Mountain Lion (4)

"Stinky" in November 2018.

 Last November, as described in a post called "The Mountain Lion Who Hated Everyone (With Reason)," I talked about the vomit-covered kitten that we picked up from a Huerfano County game warden and brought up to the local wildlife-rehabilitation center.

(Here is CPW's news release about her.)

I called her "Stinky," for lack of a better name. She soon gained a cage-mate, another kitten from down the Arkansas River in Otero County, whose even more antisocial demeanor — a good thing, really — earned him the nickname of "Hissy."  He would hide inside a hollow log in the enclosure, peer out, and hiss in the most hostile manner that he could.

"Stinky" six months later. She is crossing
the hollow log but would not fit inside it.

This was Stinky at the end of May, when she and Hissy were deemed sufficiently grown to be released into their original territories. They weighed 50–60 pounds, Hissy being a bit larger.

So I thought back to the case of Travis Kauffman, who got his fifteen minutes of fame last February when he "fought off" and killed a mountain lion west of Fort Collins.

A subsequent necropsy put the little lion's weight at 24 pounds (9 kg.) So it weighed maybe half or less what Stinky weighed upon release. 

Kauffman stomped a kitten, albeit a big one.

I and everyone else who wrote about that thought that he had been attacked, his running triggering a predatory reflex.

But the rehabber had a different view. She pointed out that Kauffman's injuries were on his front, whereas a mountain lion normally attacks from the rear or side. She thought he was probably bent over the kitten snapping photos with a smartphone when it literally got in his face.

The kitten was big enough to scratch him up, but not big enough to take him down.

Part 1 here
Part 2 here
Part 3 here

Tranquilized Mountain Lion Bites Game Wardens

Colorado Parks and Wildlife photo, as far as I can tell.

Cats — you can never trust them.

[Colorado Parks and Wildlife] said that while the cat was being lowered down, it awoke from the tranquilizer and bit two officers before being subdued again.

The cat was then put in a bear trap and relocated.

I know these guys, so I will have something to say the next time that I see them. Leather gloves, at least?

Attacked on the Trail by a Mountain Lion (3)

Part 1 here
Part 2 here

Infrared image of a mountain lion. Scroll down to learn about
mountain lion photography from an expert. (Photo: Stanford University)

My first face-to-face with a mountain lion (two of them, actually) came during my student days when I worked a few times as a camp hand/assistant cook for a small hunting outfitting concern in Westcliffe, Colorado.

During a spring bear/turkey hunt (spring bear hunting in Colorado ended in the early 1990s), the guides decided to provide some after-supper entertainment.

They took the clients (two or three men) and me down into a side canyon of Grape Creek, and Guide 2 showed us how to wail on a mouth-blown predator call. Then he shined his red spotlight across the drainage and there sat two lions — youngsters traveling together, we suspected.

They watched us. We watched them. We were ready to leave, but there they were. Finally a guide pulled out his .44 Magnum revolver and fired a couple of shots over their heads.

Blink. You could imagine them thinking, "It makes loud noises." Top predator, meet top predator.

We started walking back up a rocky path to our vehicles. The guide cast his red light back and forth behind us, but it kept getting dimmer and dimmer. Later, he claimed he had controlled that dimming with a rheostat. I suspect that his batteries were just worn out.

It was dramatic though. By the time we had the clients back to the nearby cabin, one of them, a lieutenant in a Southern California police department who had told us tales of his urban exploits, was about ready to jump out of his skin.

Me, I went out and bought a red spotlight with rechargeable battery and some predator calls. Now and again I like to see what's out there. And of course there are the scout cameras.

If I lived in northern Colorado I would be tempted to take one of these courses

How does "Mountain Lion Photography Workshop" sound?

Join local wildlife videographer and conservationist David Neils for a deep dive on the habits and habitat of mountain lions in Northern Colorado. You'll learn how to map the hunting and travel routes of these apex predators using four natural factors to view the landscape like a mountain lion, and capture weekly video of these elusive predators. 

 Here is a list of dates and places.

Attacked on the Trail by a Mountain Lion (2)

Here is Travis Kauffman, who recently fought off and killed a mountain lion that attacked him while trail-running in the foothills west of Fort Collins, Colorado.

The size of the lion, once announced as 80 pounds, has now shrunk to 40–50 pounds. A yearling, probably.

Gossip abounds. For instance, one source pretty well plugged into the state's mountain lion network (of humans, that is), claimed that he actually was shooting a video of the lion when it attacked him. That is why the attack came from the front, she said.

True, when hunting deer, lions generally attack from the side or year and bite the prey's windpipe. This lion, probably young and inexperienced, fastened onto Kauffman's wrist.

But given that he outweighed it by 100 pounds and was angry to boot, you can see how he could subdue and kill it, although he got some significant lacerations that will leave him with some scars.

(Unrelated: Travis is purely American name, as Nigel is British/West Indian. Do all Travises have Texas roots, a memory of the ill-fated William B. Travis at the Alamo?)

Attacked on the Trail by a Mountain Lion (1)

Adult mountain lion  (Colorado Parks & Wildlife).

Screens all over America, even at political websites, lit up yesterday with the news of a trail runner attacked by a mountain lion west of Fort Collins.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife kicked off the story with a news release on Monday, February 4th, reading in part:

LARIMER COUNTY, CO -- Colorado Parks and Wildlife is actively investigating a reported wild cat attack on a trail runner at Horsetooth Mountain Park on Monday afternoon, Feb 4. The victim survived the attack and is currently undergoing medical treatment at a local hospital.


The man was trail running on West Ridge Trail on Horsetooth Mountain Park property when he was attacked from behind by a large cat. The cat bit his face and wrist; the victim suffered facial lacerations, wrist injuries and scratches and puncture wounds to his arms, legs and back.

Subsequent news stories explained how the thirty-something runner not only fought off the cat but but choked it to death.  

The man picked up a rock with his free hand and pounded the cat in the head, but the animal hung on. He then put the lion in a headlock and wrestled and scrapped with the creature on the trail.

When he finally managed to free his wrist from the cat’s jaws, the runner counterattacked. He jumped on the mountain lion’s back, and, using his hands, arms and feet, he choked the animal to death, she said.

His Paleolithic great-nth grand-daddy would have been proud.

In one well-known case, a woman running alone was killed in 1994 on a trail near Auburn, California, which makes a chapter in Jordan Fisher Smith's 2005 memoir  Nature Noir: A Park Ranger's Patrol in the Sierra. On the other hand, three years ago a Pitkin County, Colorado, woman fought off a lion who had her 5-year-old's head in its mouth, so she gets the Paleo Prize too.

Allyn Atadero, father of Jaryd, with his son's clothing, found four years
after the boy disappeared along the Cache la Poudre River (Montana Standard).

Coloradans also remember the high school cross-country runner attacked in Idaho Springs in 1991 on a practice run near his school,  not to mention a 10-year-old killed in 1999 in Rocky Mountain National Park and the mystery of 3-year-old Jaryd Atadero, who disappeared on a group hike. His unsolved death is often attributed to a mountain lion, but some argue that he might have been snatched by an eagle. (There is a book about his disappearance too.)

Yet — and this is important — when you read this list of fatal attacks in North America, which begins in 1890, you will notice how many of them were on children. Of the adults, a majority seemed to have been alone and moving — running, skiing, hiking. One mountain biker was attacked while bent over fixing the chain on his bicycle, apparently.

Now is when I could segue into telling my own stories of being stalked by mountain lions — one time in particular got sort of Paleo — but I think I will save it for a follow-up post. Check back in a couple of days.

The Mountain Lion Who Hated Everyone (with Reason)

"When I am bigger, I will eat you." Mountain lion (cougar) kitten reclines on a donated
fur coat at Wet Mountain Wildlife rehabilitation center.

Yesterday's wildlife-transport gig has already been turned into a Colorado Parks and Wildlife news release. I will just cut and paste parts of the release here and add some commentary.

WALSENBURG, Colo. – After removing a mountain lion kitten from a private home, Colorado Parks and Wildlife is reminding the public it is illegal to possess wild animals and dangerous to the animals’ health.

Although sick from being fed bratwurst, the kitten appeared to be in good health otherwise, said Travis Sauder, CPW district wildlife manager, after he retrieved the kitten and sent it to the nonprofit Wet Mountain Woldlife Rehabilitation.

The "sent it," that's us. Our job is to save him about an hour and a half of driving time so that he can return to his other duties — and so that he no longer had to share his pickup truck with the smell.

But the incident could have turned out much differently since the kitten, estimated by wildlife biologists to be under six months of age, was fed human food when it probably was not yet weaned from its mother’s milk and may have only eaten regurgitated solids from its mother.

"If you find wildlife you believe to be orphaned, leave the area immediately and call CPW,” Sauder said. “By leaving the area, mom will feel safe to come back and retrieve her young.

“Many animals intentionally leave their young behind when startled, relying on the built-in camouflage of the youngsters’ spotted fur to keep them safe. The mother will then return to retrieve its young once the area is safe.”

The people in possession of the kitten published photos Monday on social media showing it in a cage. They claimed they found it in a snowbank after a snowplow passed by. They also claimed they released it back to the wild after allowing it to “thaw out.” In fact, Sauder collected the kitten from their home in Walsenburg on Tuesday.

Newly arrived at its enclosure,
the kitten peers from its vomit-flecked carrier.

The people who had grabbed up the kitten somewhere near La Veta gave it bratwurst, which it violently vomited.

What Sauder handed us was a pet carrier flecked with vomitus, containing a very unhappy little mountain lion (slightly larger than a typical house cat) who looked like something found in a gutter.

Periodically it let loose with a ROWWARRR! that sounded just like a big lion, only more treble. Who could blame it?  It had been kidnapped, fed indigestible food, confined by people, and it was filthy. Like all cats, it hates to be filthy.

Sauder said this kitten was kept far too long by humans to return to where it was found.

“It had been almost 30 hours since it was picked up Monday and its mom would not be in the area any longer,” he said. “This is why it's vital to leave baby wildlife where you find them and call us immediately."

As of today, when the photo at the top was taken, the kitten had eaten some elk meat (Dream big, little lion!), groomed itself, and settled in on an old fur coat for a bed. The rehabbers collect such coats, believing that animals, particularly predators, are more comfortable sleeping on fur.

Right now it is an enclosure used for small cats, which as multiple platform levels and a tree trunk to climb, but the plan is to move it to a larger one, since it will have to stay all winter. Some of the deer who hang around the rehabilitation center — former orphan fawns, for the most part — peered in at it. I wonder when it will realize that they are its prey.

Bears Are Hungry in the Fall

Grizzly bears (US Fish and Wildlife Service)

• Tennessee: A black bear killed a man in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Some confusion ensues.

Park officials have shot and killed the bear associated with the investigation into a man's death.

Spokeswoman Julena Campbell said it happened around 9:45 Sunday morning [Sept. 9].

A news release Wednesday said the National Park Service had euthanized a male bear after finding it near a man's body in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. On Friday, the park said rangers actually had not yet found and killed the bear.

• Wyoming: A bowhunter and his guide were attacked by grizzly bears in the Teton Wilderness; the guide was killed.

As initially reported, a grizzly bear attack on an elk hunter and his guide wounded the client hunter Corey Chubon, from Florida, and left the guide, Mark Uptain, dead. His body was recovered yesterday from the scene in Turpin Meadows at approximately 1:15pm.

After interviews and visiting the scene, Undersheriff Matt Carr said Uptain was rushed by a grizzly bear in “a very aggressive manner.”

“They were field dressing this elk. They were in thick timber and this bear was on them very quickly,” Carr said. “There was apparently no time to react.”

UPDATE: More information on the incident. Apparently bear spray was used.

• Oregon: A woman hiking was killed by a mountain lion in the Mount Hood area.

The hiker who went missing on Mount Hood in late August and was found dead at the bottom of a ravine Monday was likely killed by a cougar, authorities said — a shocking twist in the missing persons case. 

The body of Diana Bober, 55, was found Monday [Sept. 10] at the bottom of a 200-foot embankment on the famous Oregon mountain's Hunchback Trail, the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday.

Nice Kitty! Hold Still Now!

I don't know the backstory — someone might have found the mountain lion in the trap and alerted Utah Wildlife. Two game wardens arrive to free the cat, and what happens next is a class in Catchpole 101, with a naturally very angry Puma concolor.

If you were wondering, you will find Utah trapping regs here. I wonder if this trap was indeed "marked or tagged with the trap registered number of the owner."

Blog Stew: I'll Eat my (Coyote Brown) Boots

 I have so many links to offer. Does anyone still click on hyperlinks? Here is a start, anyway.

Note crucial color difference.

• The Army is switching to "coyote brown" boots, just so you will know. "Desert tan" is just so Operation Enduring Freedom. Having the better boot color will aid the fight against Islamist terrorists.

• "Guntry clubs" — apparently this is a "thing" now, as people say on the Internet. "Savvy investors" are interested, says the Washington Post.

The average age of new target shooters is 33, while 47 percent live in urban or suburban areas, and 37 percent are female, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for the firearms industry.

Me, I will stick with the Blood of Christ Shooting Sports Club.

• Hunting-angling-food blogger Hank Shaw on the dangers of trichinosis, particularly from eating bear meat.

It is a fact that bear and cougar meat are the most prominent vectors for trichinosis in North America. Pigs, which are what most people think of when they think of trich, are actually not commonly infected.

This is a link that you definitely should click.

Blog Stew Cooked on the Campfire

¶ This link is supposed to get you a free campfire cookery ebook. It will definitely get you onto The Wilderness Society's email list, but you can unsubscribe if not interested.

¶ The American Bird Conservancy is challenging the federal plan to let wind turbines kill eagles without penalty.

"Eagles are among our nation's most iconic and cherished birds. They do not have to be sacrificed for the next 30 years for the sake of unconstrained wind energy," said Dr. Michael Hutchins, National Coordinator of ABC's Bird Smart Wind Energy Program. "Giving wind companies a 30-year pass to kill Bald and Golden Eagles without knowing how it might affect their populations is a reckless and irresponsible gamble that millions of Americans are unwilling to take."

¶ Why do we have cougars (mountain lions) with us still but not American lions and sabertooths? Because the cougars were less-picky eaters. More evidence from La Brea Tar Pits.

Blog Stew — You Pack It Yourself

• The evolution of the external-frame backpack, starting with Ötzi. Some fascinating archaeological and historical examples.

• I was pleased when I got this "trophy" photo. But this one, on the other hand, is somewhere between "very interesting" and Paleolithic nightmare territory.

• Colorado wineries and farmers stall BLM energy leases in the North Fork Valley. The New West wins again.

Mountain Lions at Lunch

With the bears now out on their own, our local wildlife rehabbers were able to meet us in Nearby Town for a long lunch.

The conversation wandered around "secret" hiking trails, local water issues, and of course critter tales — specifically mountain lions.

Back when M. and I were hired by the Bureau of Land Management to census Mexican spotted owls, we were stalked by mountain lions twice that we knew of, and probably other times that we did not know of.

But these people hand-raised them. They had two lions that lived out their lives with them, because the cats had been seized from people who owned them illegally and who had had them declawed. There was no way that these cats could be released into the wild.

The lions were quite friendly, almost cuddly. But they were still cats — unpredictable.

One day one of them jumped the woman as she was leaving its pen, knocked her down, and bit into the back of her head. It sounded like a dog chewing a bone, she said.

Her husband got the cat off of her with a couple of swift kicks to the head and a squirt of pepper spray. She was half-scalped. It was a real La Brea Tar Pits moment, he says.

He himself was in a bad car wreck once and was rebuilt with pins and plates, so we figured that their skeletons would astonish archaeologists of the future.

"Look," they might say, "people in the Plastic Age were still preyed on by large carnivores. Yet this woman survived — her people took care of her."

"And the man — clearly he had many enemies, but someone rebuilt his skeleton in a primitive way."

A Camera-Trapping Trophy, But Blurry

 Continuing the narrative that started here and was continued here.

Some other animals came to the spring in late May, before it dried up.There was this red fox and two kits —the one at left is drinking.

Red fox family in the early dawn.

A wild turkey passed by the camera.

Wild turkey hen

Even a domestic dog —I suspect that it came up by an easier route than we do, from a small horse ranch about half a mile away. To reach the bowl from that ranch is easier than the route we must follow.

Once when I was hunting up there a few years ago, I saw a black-and-white farm collie trotting purposefully down in the direction of that ranch.

This dog missed meeting up with the rattlesnake.

And then there was this one, early in the morning on May 20th. If only it had slowed down a little for a sharper image!

I have always figured that to catch a mountain lion with the scout camera was a sort of Holy Grail. Now I will have to adjust my goal to a good image of a mountain lion — or else Holy Grail #2, which is a ringtail.