by jsmith | Jun 23, 2015 | Uncategorized
On Saturday, June 20, post-doc Max Allen, technician Chris Fust, and I parked in a grassy field in Wilder Ranch with one mission in mind. We were setting out to visit what we believed to be a newly established den by 25F, a female puma that lives primarily in Wilder....
by jsmith | Apr 16, 2015 | Uncategorized
The Santa Cruz Puma Project has been ramping up our captures in the last month in order to better study the puma population of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Here’s an introduction to 52F, 53F, 54M, and 55F! 52F is 5 years old and about 80 lbs. She has two kittens...
by jsmith | Apr 5, 2015 | Uncategorized
Increasingly, motion-triggered DSLR (or digital single-lens reflex) cameras equipped with a flash are being used to take better photos of animals in the wild. These photos can be very valuable for conservation because they show the public the private lives of...
by jsmith | Feb 4, 2015 | field notes, puma bios, santa cruz pumas, Uncategorized
On February 3, puma project researcher Paul Houghtaling went looking for 25F again. In May 2012, 25F’s collar stopped sending GPS data, and we have been attempting to get her a new collar ever since. After many previous attempts to track down 25f, Paul went back...
by jsmith | Jan 22, 2015 | events and outreach, media, pumas in the news, santa cruz pumas, Uncategorized
This week, we published a paper on puma behavioral responses to human development and how they relate to kill rates in the Santa Cruz Mountains. We found that females spend less time at their deer kills when they are close to people, and therefore kill deer more often...
