THE PUMA - CAT OF ONE COLOUR (Puma concolor)

[AlexE]

No matter which carnivore kills the elk, researchers agree that greater Yellowstone is a ruthless place where losers often pay the ultimate price. Last month, 14 wolves caught a female cougar out in the open skulking around one of their kills. The wolves killed the cougar, then found her kittens and killed them. The dead female had wolf hair in her teeth and claws.

"The wolves will wade into a situation and check it out, and if it goes well, they'll keep going," Smith said. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it does not. Smith saw a male grizzly drive a pack of wolves away from an elk carcass, then make a "king of the hill" defense as the wolves darted in and out, trying, but failing, to wear him out.

But wolves do not always win. Males, at 125 pounds, can go after a 110-pound female cougar if they are in a pack, but a lone wolf is a bagatelle for a 160-pound male cougar. Smith has recorded two instances of cougars ambushing and killing single wolves — one an adult, the other a pup.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/p...650cf0f4a/

Cougar and wolves battle in the Bitterroot

There might be an unusual amount of wolf/mountain lion conflict along the Idaho-Montana border-

Liz Bradley, a wolf manager for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has found an unusually high number of wolves killed by cougar in the Bitterroot Mountains near the Montana-Idaho border from Lolo on the north to near the Idaho border on the south. Note that the irregular state boundary jogs from n/s to e/w at the southern end of the Bitterroot Range. Her observation of this goes back to 2009 and is mostly based on radio collared wolves.

Competition between the two large carnivores is well known. Numerous stories have been reported over the years in the northern rocky mountains. Studies in the Big Creek area of central Idaho showed that the wolf packs tended to push cougar out of the prime areas for their prey into the rough, less desirable country.

The story is important because too many people believe that predation on deer and elk is strictly additive by each type of predator, but in fact the two compete. When you add bear to the mix things are even more complicated, and bear are usually present. Studies of what killed the elk in various parts of western Montana have, in fact, generally shown that wolves fall behind cougar and bear as the cause of predatory death.

Wolf predation tends to cause a bigger stir among humans because it isn’t as quick as a cougar kill. There is more blood on ground and the wolves don’t bury their prey.

Perry Backus in the Ravalli Republic (reproduced here in the Missoulian) gives the full story on the Bitterroot.

http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2012/05/2...itterroot/ Reply