by yiwei | Dec 12, 2012 | field notes, puma bios, santa cruz pumas
Yesterday, the team recaptured 7F in Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve in Los Gatos in order to replace her collar, which was about to run out of batteries. She’s one of our oldest and most successful cats, at about 9 years old, and is currently raising a one year...
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 | Jul 11, 2012 | field notes, puma ecology, santa cruz pumas
We’ve been placing motion-sensing trail cameras in the Santa Cruz Mountains since 2008. Our cameras have captured pumas sleeping, playing, calling to each other, scent marking, and courting. However, never before have we caught a mountain lion behaving like...
by cwilmers | Jul 3, 2012 | field notes, puma bios, puma ecology, santa cruz pumas
If the Santa Cruz pumas had a survivor contest, then 16M would undoubtedly be the winner. For the past two years, he’s made a dangerous living straddling both sides of Highway 17, a sinuous freeway connecting San Jose and Santa Cruz. All highways, for obvious...
by yiwei | Jun 18, 2012 | field notes, puma bios, puma ecology, santa cruz pumas
When a young male kitten grows up, he must leave the relative safety of his mother’s protection to venture out into the world alone. If he hopes to survive and build his own territory, he must successfully avoid being killed by other male lions, including his...
