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 | Apr 2, 2013 | puma bios, puma ecology, santa cruz pumas
Last week we visited the final resting places of two of our male lions, 16M and 17M. In both life and death, these two lions embodied the diversity of fates that may befall pumas living in the Santa Cruz Mountains. 17M was a small, 2 year old male when we first caught...
by yiwei | Mar 14, 2013 | puma bios, puma ecology, santa cruz pumas
This week, using GPS locations from her collar, Paul and Chris F. located 11F’s final resting spot in the hills above Los Gatos, a town named after her ancestors. From what they could see, she seems to have died of natural causes in January, far from roads,...
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 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...
by yiwei | Jan 22, 2013 | field notes, puma ecology, santa cruz pumas
In the past two weeks, we have been setting out deer baits throughout the Santa Cruz Mountains in hopes of collaring 1-2 new pumas and re-catching a couple of collared individuals. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of our biologists and hound dogs, the pumas all...
