Tag: puma

Mountain Lion/Puma

Puma, Torres del Paine National Park

This is a photo of a female puma in a cave in Chile's Torres del Paine National Park.

Female Puma at Cave

I had been wanting to photograph mountain lions for a while, so in 2016 I went to Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park with two friends.  This female became our most photographed subject.  She was totally oblivious to us.

She was known as “Sister.”  She had a female litter-mate who had no tail.  Her litter mate was called, as you might guess, “Tail-less.”  Tail-less became pretty well-known for a while.  I guess Sister got her name because of her relationship with Tail-less.  Anyway, by the time we were there in 2016 Tail-less had disappeared.

Mountain Lion/Puma

The Unfortunate Death of a Mountain Lion Cub in Colorado

A puma mother lies on ground with two of her 8 to 12 week old cubs.

A mother puma rests in Torres del Paine National Park with two of her three young cubs.

I’m sure everyone saw the headlines a couple of weeks ago about a trail runner in Colorado who was attacked by a mountain lion which he then killed with his bare hands. He was lauded as a hero.  His “incredible” feat was reported on favorably by all the media.

But something didn’t sound right to me.  Male mountain lions weigh between 120 and 220 lbs, averaging 137 lbs.  Females generally weigh between 65 and 140 lbs, averaging 93 lbs.  Wikipedia.  Plus, they are much, much stronger than we are on a pound for pound basis.  I just couldn’t picture how a human could kill one without a weapon.  I could see a human putting up a good fight and the animal deciding to stop the attack and leave, but killing it with one’s bare hands?  No way I thought.  I decided to keep an eye out for any further reports.

As the details came out over the next two weeks it turned out the mountain lion was a male cub of just 35 to 40 pounds.  And the runner killed it by standing on its neck until it suffocated.  USA Today.   I’d like to see someone try to stand on the neck of an adult male mountain lion weighing the average 140 pounds or so.  A necropsy report later confirmed that the mountain lion was a male, only four or five months old, weighing 35 to 40 pounds. The cat had limited fat, indicating it was hungry but not starving.  Time.

The story goes on the report that this cub had two siblings that were later captured by Colorado Parks and Wildlife.  They were captured because Parks and Wildlife concluded the mother was dead because she didn’t come for the other cubs over a few days.  The cubs have been placed in a care facility until they are old enough to fend for themselves (although that is somewhat questionable without a mother to teach them to hunt).  They weren’t old enough to survive on their own.

In my opinion, the real story is that a mountain lion female with three young cubs had died.  While I don’t know how the mother died, the odds are that it was killed by a human, possibly a rancher nearby or the  Federal Government’s Wildlife Services agency which exists primarily to kill predators for ranchers and farmers.  To me, it’s not a hero story; it’s a sad story of a little mountain lion cub who would be alive today if its mother hadn’t been killed.

As I was writing this and searching for facts of the event I found a well-written blog where the writer posted a photo of a cub she was holding about the same size and age as the one that was killed.  It looks pretty small compared to an adult.  An incredible heroic feat?  Not compared to being attacked by an adult of about four times the size of the cub.  For a link to the blog click here.

Why did the cub attack?  I don’t know for sure, but most likely it was very hungry because its mother was no longer feeding it and it just reacted on instinct for food.  If it had been a deer walking by, the cat would probably have attacked it as well – and failed.

Mountain Lion/Puma

Puma, Patagonia

Puma finishes a nice yawn.
“Back Off”!  No, I’m just kidding.

This puma may look menacing, but she is just finishing off a nice long yawn.  She is called “Sister” and the few times we saw her she was very relaxed.  In fact, she did a lot of sleeping when we saw her, just like my cat, Rosie, here at home.

Other Mammal

Guanaco, Patagonia

A guanaco stares at an exotic species.
A guanaco in Torres del Paine National Park

When my two friends and I went to Torres del Paine National Park to photograph pumas in May of 2016 the animal we saw most often was the guanaco.  The guanaco is a camel-like animal.  It stands 3 to 4 feet at the shoulder and weighs 200 to 300 lbs.  It is the primary large prey species of the puma in Patagonia.

Guanacos live in herds composed of females, their young, and a dominant male.  When they see a puma, they alert the herd to flee with a high-pitched, bleating call.  We were always listening for those calls and we heard them fairly frequently.

In writing this I paid a quick visit to Wikipedia.  I knew that in addition to guanacos there are similar camelid animals called called llamas, vicunas and alpacas in South America.  However, I was surprised to learn that guanacos are the wild parent of the domestic llama.  Likewise, the vicuna is the wild parent to the domesticated alpaca.  In that way they are like the wild caribou and its domesticated descendant, the reindeer.  At least I knew that relationship.

Mountain Lion/Puma

Puma, Torres del Paine National Park

A puma, aka mountain lion, walks along a ridge.
Puma at Dusk, Chilean Patagonia

In May 2016 I went to Torres del Paine National Park with two friends in search of pumas or mountain lions as we know them.   The park is on the Chilean side of Patagonia.  We had great success in that we saw 18 different pumas in six days and photographed twelve of them, as I recall.  It involved a lot of hiking. This puma, however, showed itself when we were driving back to our hotel after sunset.

Pumas are protected in Chile, but they kill some sheep and the ranchers shoot them without regard to the law on ranches throughout Chile (and Argentina).  Fortunately, many more pumas are safe today thanks to the work of conservationist Doug Tompkins and his wife, Kris, who have bought millions of acres of ranches and converted those lands into national parks with the cooperation of Chile and adjoining Argentina.  Unfortunately, Doug died in a kayaking accident in December of 2015.  His wife, however, continues his legacy.  For more about Doug Tompkins, see this article.

Mountain Lion/Puma

Pumas in Patagonia

Mountain Lions (aka pumas, cougars, catamounts etc.) have eluded me here in the United States, so last May I went to Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia.  I had learned that it was much more feasible to find and photograph them there.  I also hired a guide who was worth every penny in finding mountain lions or, as they are known there, pumas.

Puma, Patagonia
A female puma known as “Sister”

If you’d like to see more of my photos of Torres del Paine pumas, click here.  Click on the first photo and then just toggle through them using the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard or use the navigation guide at the bottom of each image.  By the way, the link is to a new website I am building.  It is still in the early stages, but the majority of the puma images I plan to use on it are there now.

The trip was a great success. I’ll do a more detailed report on it in the future.