by cwilmers | Oct 17, 2012 | field notes, puma bios, puma ecology, santa cruz pumas
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...
by yiwei | Oct 10, 2012 | field notes, puma ecology, santa cruz pumas
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...
by yiwei | Oct 4, 2012 | field notes, 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...
by yiwei | Sep 28, 2012 | field notes, puma bios, puma ecology
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...
by yiwei | Sep 19, 2012 | field notes, puma bios, puma ecology
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...
by yiwei | Jul 30, 2012 | field notes, puma ecology
Here is a rare glimpse of the chivalrous side of the male puma, stepping aside to share his meal with a female. Males aren’t always that nice, however, and will often attack or even kill animals that try to feed on their kills. In the wild, pumas often cache...
