Here’s a recent New York Times article about the work Terrie is doing to calibrate our new collars on captive mountain lions in Colorado. They said it couldn’t be done, but sure enough these lions are walking on a treadmill! We’ll eventually be able to use the energetic measurements that Terrie is getting on these captive animals to better understand the impacts of humans on wild animals. Here’s a little teaser:
Mischief, a 10-year-old captive female mountain lion here in Colorado, may have provided a crucial link in the chain of research. The 121-pound cat, orphaned shortly after birth when her mother was shot by an elk hunter and raised by the state as a study animal, paced on a modified treadmill on Monday morning while munching venison morsels hand-fed in reward by her trainer