On Wednesday night, we captured our newest puma in the Cemex Redwoods using a cage trap. We have had pretty great success with cage traps recently – catching a puma on 3 out of 4 attempts. We weren’t sure if 42M was going to return to the cage because in the previous night, he had eaten a large portion of a deer carcass.
The team taking 42M’s weight (photo by Kate Richerson)
42M is a small 3-4 year old male weighing in at only 107 lbs. In comparison, some of our other males have weighed between 120-140 lbs. We are not sure why there are such size variations between males in our area, but we will monitor 42M’s weight in any future recaptures to see if he might continue to grow larger.
42M’s paw pads (photo by Kate Richerson
In the cage, 42M was a very feisty animal and was not afraid to show us some aggression. Luckily, he reacted very well to the tranquilizer and passed out almost immediately. We inspected him and found him a generally healthy cat, with no scars and only one tick. It appears that he has done a good job avoiding confrontation, but this may change if he runs into 36 M or another local male cat. We’ll be able to find out in the next few months from his GPS data whether he’s a territorial male or a transient looking for a home. Welcome to the project!
42M (with his new collar) recovering from tranquilizers (photo by Kate Richerson)