36M and 10F taking a nice early morning stroll
Two of our collared lions were caught on Max Allen's camera this August associating with each other. And when a male and female lion "associate", you know what that means... kittens! Maybe. Female lions have about a 3 month gestation period, so if 10F did get pregnant...
Wildlife activity around the Santa Cruz Mountains
Happy Halloween! The puma project has dozens of trail cameras scattered throughout the Santa Cruz Mountains. Sometimes, the cameras record some really nice footage of other species that call the Bay Area home. It's a great reminder that pumas and humans share this...
Puma Project a major component of POST’s new Heart of the Forest campaign
The Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) recently unveiled their new Heart of the Forest campaign, outlining their recent acquisition of CEMEX (the old cement plant in Santa Cruz County) and future goals for redwood conservation in the Bay Area. An integral component of...
Hounds and lions
Yesterday we re-collared 27m in the Soquel Demonstration Forest, our big male that splits his time between Nisene Marks and Sierra Azul. After running a few hundred yards downhill, he climbed this big douglas fir and camped out there until we got a tranquilizer dart...
Up close and personal with a female puma
Graduate student Max Allen captured this video of a female puma advertising for mates in the Santa Cruz Mountains. You can see she gets very close to the camera, rubbing against in a manner that any cat owner will recognize instantly! Pumas are solitary animals, which...
Some cool new technology
About a year ago, we got this cool new cell-phone game camera - the ScoutGuard SG550M. A cell-phone game camera is one that texts and emails you when it takes a picture, at least theoretically. Well, we had some issues with it and it laid around gathering dust for a...
It’s fall and love in is in the air! Or at least pheromones…
Happy fall everyone! I wanted to share some fun news about our pumas. Based on their GPS information, it seems that 26M and 28F have been spending quite a bit of time together this last week in Sierra Azul Open Space and Almaden Quiksilver Park. I think we can safely...
It’s Kitten Season!
For the first time in our 4 year long project, all of our collared female lions are raising kittens! It seems that a real birth pulse has occurred this summer, with most of our females giving birth in July and August. By now, you have met 23F's kittens, but we wanted...
Puma Tracker updated!
The long awaited update to Puma Tracker has arrived! We now have 25 different pumas tracks for you to explore on the interactive map, including our most recently collared cats. Check it out here!
16M’s fifteen minutes of fame
Hey everyone - check out Jason Hoppin's story on 16M's travels across Hwy 17! It's the top Sunday story on the Santa Cruz Sentinel, and picked up by the San Jose Mercury News too! Shows that mountain lions still enthrall people. Keep following 16M's journey on our...
