New or Newer Mountain Lion Study Findings

I have mixed emotions of anger, told-you-so, excitement and a bunch of other feelings flowing through me now.  I'll just bite my tongue for now because I'm sure the "yeah but North Dakota doesn't have a study" will come to the forefront.

Anyway, here's an article provided to me by a fellow FBOer who shares the same desire to educate himself on mountain lions.  I am disappointed I did not find this myself!  But happy I was provided it!  Never-the-less, here you go folks.  Draw your own conclusions from a very lengthy and what I see as an accurate study.

I will add my comments...because I cannot resist.

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Ferocious appetites: Study finds mountain lions may be eating more than previously believed

By BRETT FRENCH Of The Gazette Staff The Billings Gazette | Posted: Thursday, December 9, 2010 12:30 am

Mountain lions were treed in the winter to capture them for collaring in the Canadian study. The study found that adult male lions were more likely to kill less but bigger prey than females.

Related: Mountain lion study

Mountain lions, the largest members of the cat family in North America, may be heartier eaters than some researchers originally estimated.

“One of the most interesting things we found was how much more prey they kill in summer,” said Kyle Knopff, lead author of a three-year Canadian mountain lion study that was recently published in the Journal of Wildlife Management. “Just how focused they become on young of the year ungulates was surprising.”

Hmmm, hmmm, and hmmm.  We had record low doe to fawn ratios.  Winter was for the most part solely blamed by many.  Should we rethink that?  Should we place more blame than we have on cats?  I have been saying all along I think it is a factor we are not giving enough credit to and as you will see, I am not alone in my arm chair beliefs.

GPS aids study

Not just a shoot from the hip, check out the contents of a stomach study!

Knopff is basing his conclusions on data collected from more than 1,500 kill sites while tracking 54 cougars with GPS collars. The collars allowed the University of Alberta researchers, including his wife Aliah, to move in quickly after a kill to identify what was taken and by which lion.

In the journal article Knopff writes that some previous studies “may have failed to identify higher kill rates for large carnivores in summer because methods in those studies did not permit researchers to locate many neonates or because sample size was too small.”

The use of GPS collars enabled Knopff and his colleagues to collect more data. As a result, he found that mountain lions killed more deer, elk and moose during the summer by focusing on juveniles and actually killed fewer animals in winter. The information contradicts previous studies conducted in Idaho.

I will definitely have to track down the Idaho study because I'd like to see the parameters.  Did they use GPS to track the critters, etc?  And again, pretty wicked relation to our dire situation with mule deer.  Remember folks, this ain't our first time having back to back rough winters.  Plus, the middle year winter wasn't as brutal as the other two.  Can we safely draw a conclusion kitty cats are taking out the young ones ASSISTING what winter couldn't kill??  I have always said "I think so!"

I've always been fair with my discussions.  I will go check out the Idaho study to get a compare and contrast.  Tis what I do.

“The Idaho estimates differed from our summer estimates by as much as 365 percent in terms of frequency of killing and 538 percent in terms of prey biomass,” Knopff wrote. “Because kill rate fundamentally influences the effect predators have on their prey, the discrepancy between studies represents a substantial difference in the capacity for cougars to impact ungulates.”

Built to kill

The study was conducted over 10 years in west-central Alberta, including the Bow Valley, Jasper National Park, portions of Banff National Park and in Clearwater County east of Banff. The terrain of the study area was a mixture of lodgepole pine and spruce forests at elevations ranging from 2,500 to 9,300 feet. The mountain lions' prey included deer, elk, bighorn sheep, coyotes, feral horses, beaver and porcupines.

Cougars aren't easy creatures to study. The secretive animals range widely to hunt - 250 to 600 square miles for males, 60 to 125 square miles for females.

Adult male cougars can weigh 140 to 165 pounds. One male cougar in Knopff's study tipped the scales at 180 pounds and primarily fed on moose and feral horses. Females typically weigh around 100 pounds. From nose to tail the big cats can measure 6.5 to 10 feet long. The average lifespan for a male is 8 to 10 years, 12 to 14 for females.

That's a lot of years for our cats to live in ND and do what cats do.  Our kill data is showing much younger cats being killed and yet our collared cat lives and continues to breed.  He isn't collared anymore but the point is, we have cats reaching maturity.  How many more out there are surviving and not moving on?  Time for us to get cats collared NOW!!!

I had the same individual who provided this article to me say the NDGF is at this very moment making arrangements for more cats to be collared.  I'm glad even though it is later in the ball game than I'd like.

Great leapers and sprinters, cougars kill by latching onto their prey with their front claws and powerful forelegs and then biting the windpipe or spine along the neck with their large canine teeth. For smaller prey, lions may crush the animal's skull. On rare occasions lions have been known to attack humans.

“Our kill rate estimates indicate that adult cougars are highly effective predators, killing at rates at the upper end of those recorded for wolves in both frequency and biomass,” Knopff wrote.

Uh Oh!!!!!!!  Have I been too "fair" in my analysis giving cats a kill once per 2.5 weeks??

In one prey encounter they studied, Knopff said a cougar brought down a feral horse less than 30 yards from where it attacked.

“I think our study showed they are very efficient predators,” he said.

Because of their adaptability, cougars are found from the Yukon to the Andes of South America, a larger range than any other big mammal in the Americas.

Study findings

In studying cougar kill sites, the researchers publicized a couple of interesting details. One is that that female mountain lions with kittens kill more deer; the other is that adult male lions kill larger but fewer animals.

Oh boy oh boy.  Our kill data shows we have a lot of females.  We also have a lot of young cats that were most likely just weened from their mother.  We also have a lot of trail cam photos lately of several mothers with her kittens.  So again, my arm chair biology is seemingly falling into place with this current, recent and GPS supported study.

I will say, I am somewhat mad at myself because I compromised against my belief with some that males were the bigger killers.  I backed down on my belief that females and her litters were bigger killers and according to this study, I was more in the correct passing lane than not.  If you think about it, it makes sense.  It also again makes sense on our wicked low doe to fawn ratio.  If you have a pertty handsome breeding population in a much lessor habitat area in that of the Badlands what do you think a cat will go after?  Mom or a fawn which is much easier?  I'm curious at what age cats start knocking down fawns.  I'm guessing a one year old cat weighing 60 plus pounds has no problem.

“We had one male cougar kill 18 moose in less than a year,” Knopff said.

That is impressive.  As I have said, they are killing machines.

Based on the Canadian data, the cougars killed on average .8 ungulates (mainly whitetail deer and moose) a week, an average of about 18 pounds a day. That statistic varied widely, though, based on the individual - from a low of .24 ungulates to a high of 1.38, or 18 to 41 pounds a day.

I should never have backed down on my other findings of 1 ungulate kill per week.  I went as far as 2.5 to satisfy many of you.  But as the study says, it varies so I'll still play "accordingly".  I think we have a safe bet in saying 1 ungulate per 1.5 to 2 weeks.  I'll let you doubters decide which you want to choose.  But remember folks, our very NDGF collared cat that roamed the hills for a few years allowing us to track him was said by the NDGF to put down 1 deer per 10 days.  So basically, 1 deer per 1.5 weeks.  That's eerie similar to the study!

Those ungulates targeted tended to be young of the year or adults with yearlings, largely because they were easier to subdue.

This again is really glaring obvious to me.  Winter isn't the only killer and winter isn't killing right now.  Just the cats are and we didn't have cats killing like they are now compared to the past.  I do not think our low doe to fawn ratio is a winter statistic solely and I also feel it is much more than we care to realize.  Lack of study, lack of understanding and a lack of accepting commons sense.  I know, I know.  I cannot use that phrase but if you do the math of per deer per week ratio you get one hell of a big number of deer that DID NOT DIE AT THIS RATE PRE-MOUNTAIN LION 2001 (or whatever year we want to pick).  Point is, when you have hungry cats killing deer of which is 75% of their diet, they can put a ding in populations.  ESPECIALLY, when they are said to target younger ungulates.
 
Deer made up more than 75 percent of the diet for adult female lions in winter and summer. Adult males had a more varied diet, concentrating on moose (36 percent) in the summer and deer (44 percent) in the winter. All told, adult males targeted large ungulates for 62 percent of their diet. Subadult lions also ate more deer than other species, but like human teenagers they also varied their diet more opportunistically than adults.

I've said repeatedly that trying to draw a conclusion other food sources were above deer was silly.  Or maybe not so much above but that they ate enough other food sources to cut down on how many deer they killed.  75% is a big number for a big number of what appears to make up our population of cats (according to our kill studies...only thing we can go off of).

On average, adult males killed an estimated 10,300 pounds of biomass annually compared to 9,400 pounds killed by females with young kittens.

Humans vs. cougars

Aliah Knopff said her portion of the study focused more on cougar-human interactions and the lion's habitat selection.

She said that as people have continued to build in more remote areas, cougars have had to adapt.

“These are actually quite adaptable carnivores,” she said, from changing their movements to become more nocturnal and avoid humans, to finding undisturbed islands within development to live in - such as along pipelines or well sites. The same can't be said for many other carnivores.

Not a surprise to me.

These more urban lions are mainly limited by human tolerance, she said. The people in rural Alberta who were interviewed for the study valued cougars highly, but not if they were killing pets or livestock.

“That's the challenge for cougar conservation when the backyard is becoming more overlapping,” she said.

Possible uses

Lion hunting is allowed in many Western states, including Montana and Wyoming. Hunters track and tree the big cats with hounds. Cougar kills are carefully regulated by state wildlife agencies.

Knopff writes that the Canadian study could be used by game managers to better calculate mountain lions' take of game animals and in turn reduce lion numbers to benefit deer, elk and moose populations. For example, hunting female cougars could reduce the number of deer taken in a specific area.

Uh oh, this here goes against recent conversations!  Killing cats "benefit deer, elk and moose populations."  Some don't think there is an issue in the first place.

But such management can also produce unpredictable outcomes, he added. A lion population that is younger may lead to increased confrontations with humans.

We've seen that with our depredation kills but the truth is, it isn't from whacking momma.  Momma is young in the first place.  We just have solid breeding populations in the Badlands and as result have more roaming young cats.

Contact Brett French, Gazette Outdoors editor, at french@billingsgazette.com or at 657-1387.

Read more: http://billingsgazette.com/lifestyles/recreation/article_d9cf046b-2c47-539f-a267-972e72e570b6.html#ixzz1iVOxY9i2

Interesting study!  I will read into the other related lion study linked above and check out the Idaho one.  I actually do not believe I've read the Idaho study before.  As always, will be interesting!  And I know this is one study but man, this study sure draws eerie similarities to what I see is happening in the Badlands.  If we want to draw some sort of compromise between studies out there I'll accept some but as I said, there is an eerie picture being painted.

I was told to check out specifically page 71 from this study.  Haven't done so yet but will do shortly.  For you all to read up on as well:

http://fwp.mt.gov/fwpDoc.jsp?id=50730