Yesterday, the team recaptured 7F in Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve in Los Gatos in order to replace her collar, which was about to run out of batteries. She’s one of our oldest and most successful cats, at about 9 years old, and is currently raising a one year old male kitten (who was photographed by our fancy texting camera). 7F has done remarkably well despite living close to Highway 17 and the town of Los Gatos. She enjoys hunting deer along the steep mountainsides of Sierra Azul, which makes finding her kills a bit challenging for our field staff.
7F looking down from tree
Because 7F had a collar, Paul was able to determine her rough location using radio telemetry. While he was locating her, he heard 7F calling to her cub (it probably sounded like this). The hound dogs had some trouble finding the tree she had climbed up, possibly because her cub likely was also in the area, but Paul eventually pinpointed her location with telemetry. She jumped from the first tree to another one about 200 meters away where Veronica was able to safely tranquilize her with a dart rifle.
Veronica preparing to dart 7F
After she was darted, 7F ran about 150m from the tree, where the team located and processed her on the ground. Her coat looked thick and healthy, and she had a nice fat layer for the cool California winter. Her new collar has already started transmitting data and has a battery life of 2 years, which means we hopefully won’t have to bother her again until 2014. In the meantime, we’ll try to keep tabs on her and her cub and maybe even get a collar on him too.
Photos from Paul Houghtaling