by yiwei | May 16, 2013 | field notes, media, puma bios, puma ecology, pumas in the news, santa cruz pumas
Today, we collared our newest puma, 39M, a young, dispersal-aged male in the most bizarre capture scenario imaginable. Instead of finding him using hound dogs among redwoods or trapping him in a cage with some road-kill deer, we found 39M in downtown Santa Cruz, near...
by paulh | Apr 16, 2013 | field notes, puma bios, santa cruz pumas
We recently recaptured puma 29F. The batteries on her collar were many weeks beyond the estimated date it’d run out of power. Typically, we recapture and replace the collar on a puma with a safer margin of battery power, but apprehending 29F was a real challenge....
by yiwei | Feb 20, 2013 | field notes, puma bios, santa cruz pumas
After over eight months since 36M’s capture, our team here has been itching to catch a new puma. Over the weekend, we tried to catch an uncollared animal using a cage baited by some road kill deer. While we succeeded in luring the animal into the trap, s/he managed to...
by yiwei | Feb 11, 2013 | field notes
Here is a cute video of leopards discovering a mirror in the forests of Gabon for the first time (probably). These were probably two juvenile individuals, trying to figure out where the other kitties were hiding so that they could play with them. Like most animals,...
by yiwei | Feb 8, 2013 | field notes
Some pumas are really good at evading capture (like 3M from last week’s post). They either do a great job hiding (from hound-dog noses) in trees, or learn to avoid our cages while feeding on our baits. One of the males we have been trying to recapture for months...
by paulh | Jan 29, 2013 | field notes, puma bios, santa cruz pumas
I received a message from a friend a couple of days ago with curious news: a friend of his had found a puma skeleton and tracking collar near Wilder Ranch State Park, and did I want the collar? “Yes, of course” I replied, suspecting that the remains must be those of...
