Cougar Predation

[Balam]

Translations from the book "Caballos en Compania" where the relations between cougars and wild horses from the Venezuelan Llanos is explained:

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"The horses suffer predation by cougars and jaguars in almost natural levels.....with some 70 kgs, the cougar is too small to kill an adult horse, unless the horse is in decaying state, but it does feed on foals. Typically, cougars open the posterior of the skulls after skinning the face and lick the brain. The cougar hunts in the open savannah..."

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"Unlike the jaguar, much bigger and strong, that remains in the wooded areas, we didn't witness any predation by jaguars (perhaps due to ignorance)"

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"A real threat for foals, we found two or three killed yearly, although the most probable is there would've been more kills if we had inspected the area meter by meter across the entire area. Living with predators makes the cimarrones (the horses) particularly aware of the real danger. In April, foals are small and the most vulnerable. Anything that may relate to a cougar scares the horses instantly."

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"The horses don't enter the gallery forest to the extreme north-east of the reserve, where the jaguar is found. The jaguar doesn't go out to the open savannah, the cougar does, and hunts there. The favorite zone for grassing for the horses is in the center of the reserve, where there are no bushes or cover"

*This image is copyright of its original author

"In that year (2011) we found tracks of cougars with cubs several times through the way of Flor Amarillo, and the young mare Gitanilla lost what seemed to be a perfectly healthy foal, the first it had, the day after being born"

The book also goes into detail about the relationships among cougars and wild horses in the Patagonia. I will include the pages later on. Reply