This is rather offbeat, but it does fit in with the “nature” and “puzzling things” portion of WUWT as indicated in the masthead.
These photos were emailed to me by the former Butte County Sheriff, Mick Grey, whom I have coffee with regularly. He’s had to deal with more than a few mountain lions in his career, and he’s never seen anything like this. Neither have I.
A woman who lives about 2-3 miles from Lake Oroville (about 25 miles southeast of my location) sent these pictures which were taken just 1 mile from Forbestown. A cow was found killed and the infrared trail cam (seen at left) was put in place to see what was preying on it.
[Correction: It seems both the Sheriff and I have been snookered by the person who emailed him. These photos are from Moses Coulee in central Washington. Thanks to WUWT reader Mark A. Story here:
http://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/2011/feb/18/cougar-pride-wenatchee-hunter-catches-eight-big/
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2014261221_cougars18m.html
My apologies to readers, however, the photos below are legit and still worth a look.]
You can count up to eight cats in one of the pictures. Who’d ever heard of eight cougars at a kill site? They’re starting to act more like a pride of lions than the solitary cougars they normally are.
Pictures follow. Here kitty kitty.
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In the vein of the wolf discussions, anyone not familiar with them may be quite surprised and intrigued by the very beautiful but unusual looking maned wolf of South America. They’re apparently alone in their genus, and are the tallest of all the wolves, standing on average about 3 ft. at the shoulder and yet only averaging about 50 lbs. This link doesn’t have the best photos, but is what I’ve got handy and you can find other photos of them fairly easily: http://animaldiscovery-chanel.blogspot.com/2010/12/maned-wolf-conservation-in-africa.html With just a quick search I wasn’t able to find any supposed hybrids involving them.
While you’re at that site also check out the link on the righthand side of the page to the raccoon dog (or search them out otherwise).
Anyone not already familiar with the story will also be astounded by a breeding program from the 50’s that occurred in Russia, at a fox fur farm. Within only 10 generations, selecting only for non-aggressive behavior, the foxes began acting like dogs, playful, extremely friendly and unafraid of humans (without being handled!), barking and wagging tails – and the most amazing, coat color changed and white patches appeared (piebald pattern), again, similar to dogs, ears got floppier, tail carriage changed to curl up over the back, they remained more puppish/playful, etc. It will blow your minds, particularly for these traits to be brought out where they hadn’t seemed to exist in the species before (makes ya think of the massive variation we have in our dogs, no?). I’m sorry I don’t have a good link handy, but its pretty easy to find info searching for phrases such as ‘russian fox farm experiment’ – the researcher was a Dr. Belyaev. There is info on them at: http://cbsu.tc.cornell.edu/ccgr/behaviour/History.htm including short videos of the ‘domesticated foxes’ verses the wild/farmed foxes and how they each responded to identical ‘testing’ for just how aggressive they are or aren’t (e.g., the breeding selection criteria).
Fox species are pretty amazing in terms of their variety in shapes and sizes around the world – from the tiny highly social fennec fox that weighs all of between about 1.5–3.5 lb and is supposedly a good if very rambunctious pet (fennec youngster playing w/ owner: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pdENboAxpc), all the way up to 17 lb red foxes. The little fennec’s put Yoda to shame – they’re nothing but a pair of massive ears (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsgEtNeJ-Ps&NR=1&feature=fvwp) and typically a ball of energy compared to either dogs or cats!
This has been an educational lesson to me. As a farmer I picked up of the fact the cow that died was an economic loss to society and the owner. I have seen in an earlier post there was not a cow involved after all. But all the following discussion centered on cougars,coyotes and how interesting wildlife is. I’ve learned that the posters here are so used to going to the store and simply getting what they need that the problems involved in delivering food to them are a very minor part of their lives.
Oh well . I guess farmvill is more real to people than real agriculture and that is scarry>
Rational Debate says: February 25, 2011 at 5:25 am
tail carriage changed to curl up over the back, they remained more puppish/playful, etc.
I had read of that experiment before, and the curling tail is a dead give away in domesticated vs. non-domesticated canines. Our little (70 lbs) arctic wolf never curls her tail unless she wants to play.
Wild nature!! And here is a photo of a pack of dogs attacking a crocodile!!!
http://colfaxchick.blogspot.com/2010/09/dog-pack-attacks-croc.html
Alexander Feht
February 25, 2011 at 12:15 am
Re: coyotes, jackals, wolves, and dogs.
In case you are interested, C.latrans (yote) and C.aureus (golden jackal) are thought to be sister taxon, diverging only a litle over 1 million years ago.
*****
Al Gored says:
February 24, 2011 at 8:58 pm
No doubt that the Barred Owl has rapidly expanded its population and does compete with their cousins but not so simple to fix.
*****
Here in the Appalachian forests, there are (at least) two large birds that have defied human-caused changes and flourished — the Barred owl & the Pileated woodpecker. Both are very elusive to see, but are easily detected by their calls. Besides the usual who cooks for you? call, the BO also has a neck-hair-raising “bark” that sounds like something out of a horror movie.
Even Great Blue herons have returned — there’s one that commonly patrols & feeds out of my border stream, even in the winter. I’ve seen the smaller Green heron here in the summer. And I’m 200 miles from the Atlantic.
Well, if this is the direction of cougar social development, carrying a handgun, shotgun or bolt-action in the bush won’t cut it anymore. Well need Uzis, or at least an AK-47.
It’s an interesting development. Up to now, all accounts of North American puma behavior suggest that mature toms don’t tolerate anything but breeding females in their territory, and will kill any juveniles they can catch.
If this documentation is genuine, it suggests to me that such an accumulation of juveniles have aggregated in the less desirable terrain avoided by the big toms that they have become something of an extended family, hunting together, as sibling juveniles do.
DesertYote says:
February 24, 2011 at 10:58 pm
“Speaking of native American dogs, ever hear of the Carolina Dog?”
Sure have. Are you familiar with the book ‘A History of Dogs in the Early Americas’ by Marion Schwarz (Yale University Press)?
And I see you definitely get the problem of inventing ‘subspecies’ or ‘distinct geographic populations.’ When they can, and can get it listed as Threatened or worse, some research team has a new franchise and jobs for years, decades, or for life. Plus use it as leverage for other land use agendas. Bit of a conflict of interest there to put it mildly. It is now so bad that the DNA evidence they use has also become… ah… dubious is a nice word.
beng says:
February 25, 2011 at 7:29 am
“Here in the Appalachian forests, there are (at least) two large birds that have defied human-caused changes and flourished — the Barred owl & the Pileated woodpecker. Both are very elusive to see, but are easily detected by their calls. Besides the usual who cooks for you? call, the BO also has a neck-hair-raising “bark” that sounds like something out of a horror movie.”
We are lucky enough to have Barred Owls nest in a huge cottonwood less than 100 m from our house which they have used every year for the past 9 years. So we get to hear them almost year round, and during the courtship period in particular they do all sorts of wierd and wonderful calls. We get to see them a lot too because during nesting season the male tends to roost in exactly the same one or two spots every day and as long as you don’t stop and stare at them they become oblivious to you walking by ( that works for a lot of things; the ‘stare’ is what predators do). As a bonus they also hunt right around our house when feeding young, sometimes even picking off mice under our bird feeder.
re post: beng says: February 25, 2011 at 7:29 am
Is THAT what makes that horror movie screech?? When I first moved to Va countryside not far from major metro area, at night there was an absolute hair raising horror movie scream/screech call that I’d hear periodically – amazingly loud too. I had no idea if it was an owl or maybe a fox/coyote or gawd knows what. With a little digging around/researching, I finally decided that there must be a screech owl in the woods behind the house.
There happened to be a few small (very cute) feral cats that hung around a neighbor’s place, and I started finding a few 4 to 6 month old kittens freshly decapitated, no head readily found either, laying in my drive (long gravel drive, some trees lining it but fields on both sides, woods a few hundred feet further on)…. I have to say finding them like that got rather creepy to say the least. Then I found the skeleton of a kitten hung over the top of a 6ft fence post and was certain at that point that it had to be a predator bird of some sort that was responsible. Not too much later I saw a very large owl, once, almost invisible in some of the cedar trees right by where those kittens had turned up. So I hit the Audubon bird book and I’m virtually certain that it was a Barred owl and that it was the culprit behind the decapitations.
I had NO idea that it might also have been the source of those really knarly screeches too. I got to be sort of fond of the occasional horror screeches once I was used to them, but at first they were a bit unnerving, and I’m not easily bothered by things that way. Regardless, whatever was making those calls really ought to star in horror movie sound tracks.
Rational Debate says:
February 25, 2011 at 3:12 pm
I’m not sure what else you have around there but it would almost certainly not be a Barred Owl killing kittens. They are not that aggressive and prey on smaller things. The Great Horned owl is the only one likely to kill kittens, or small cats, skunks, etc. But that still would not explain the decapitated corpses. That must be something else.
Since I have seen house cats decapitate weasels and leave them, I wonder if that could just be some big nasty feral tom cat doing that? As for the skeleton left hanging, that’s a mystery as any predatory bird big enough to kill it and get it there wouldn’t likely just leave it there. Sounds more like what some kid would do.
Or… given the whole picture… maybe you are living on top of an ‘old Indian burial ground’… or aliens are doing experiments… or… who knows… very cat-astrophic!
Just guessing…Almost no chance th
My bad – just pulled the Audubon out again and I was mistaken about which owl I’d seen – Barred sounded familiar so I was thinking that was what it was, but I was recalling the wrong name – it was a great horned owl, not the barred. So maybe the horror movie screeching I was hearing was a screech owl after all… I’d love to konw for sure, but who knows, could have been almost anything back there and I don’t know the difference in their calls.
It seems the great horned owls are known for often decapitating prey before working on the body – or according to this google books bit, if food is plentiful, decapitating then eating just the brain and then just discarding the body. This kill (although it’s not a cat) looks just like what I found left of the kittens, except the kittens didn’t’ appear to have been eaten on otherwise, just no heads. The great horned owls are apparently noted for even killing full sized adult cats sometimes. That google bit even mentions one being seen taking a bobcat, which is hard to imagine!
As to the skeleton on the post – it had no flesh left on it at all, and there were bird droppings on the post too. I assumed that the bird took it there as a fairly safe place to eat it, then left the skeleton once it’d eaten everything else…. These kittens were still pretty little (even the adults were surprisingly small), and an owl or hawk that hunts rabbits or the like wouldn’t have had any problem with the size of these kittens, they probably weren’t more than 2 to 4 lbs I’d guess.
On another occasion I ran into a large barn owl early one morning on my way out to feeding the horses while it was still dark (and drizzing too). Was VERY surprised to head to the gate next to the run-in shed/barn and there just a few feet from me was this guy sitting on the fence post, in the rain no less. Even more surprised when he let me slowly work my way up to within just a few feet of him and stand there watching him for quite awhile. It seemed odd that he’d let me get so close, but he was cool as a cucumber and didn’t seem to mind one bit.
Regardless, as Al Gored noted, finding a few kittens like this was both gross, and cat-astrophic. I felt horrible for the kittens, whatever was going on. I initially wondered if humans were involved too, but it didn’t seem to fit especially over time and as nothing else odd happened. Once I saw the owl and read up on them a little that seemed by far the most likely explanation. Then I felt even worse about all of the wild cats a year or so later when I had animal control come and get them after having the rabid skunk episode at my place. There was a rabies epidemic at the time and it didn’t seem reasonable to take the risk particularly as the house they hung around had a three or four year old child living there. I wish there had been some way to get them vaccinated and leave them be otherwise, but there wasn’t anyone I could find who would do that at the time.
Pamela Gray says:
We’ve got cats all over the place in Wallowa County. My older sister insists that I “carry” when I go fishing. She’s probably right. … Are cougars attracted to anise/peanutbutter/krill scent?
Ric Werme says:
Good idea, except that your cougar will likely bite your neck breaking it before you can pull out the gun.
Pamela Gray says:
If you have neither gun nor dog, when out in the woods, know the trail well, carry a high quality whistle around your neck, and turn around and look behind you every few yards.
===============================
I read somewhere that tigers, like cougars, attack from the back.
And that people who share their territory with tigers wear a mask on the back of their heads with big eyes.
Supposedly it stops the tiger from attacking.
Has this been tried with mountain lions?
If it works, at least confusing the mountain lion and slowing it down, it might save lives.
otropogo says: February 25, 2011 at 11:11 am
[…]
If this documentation is genuine, it suggests to me that such an accumulation of juveniles have aggregated in the less desirable terrain avoided by the big toms that they have become something of an extended family, hunting together, as sibling juveniles do.
That would be a reasonable assumption. However, the four I saw, live in an area with a lot of deer, elk, wild turkeys, rabbits, mink, etc. There is a lot of wild food, which is probably why they haven’t gone after the horses and cows people keep around here. Lack of food does not seem to be the cause for their banding together.
*****
Rational Debate says:
February 25, 2011 at 3:12 pm
re post: beng says: February 25, 2011 at 7:29 am
Besides the usual who cooks for you? call, the BO also has a neck-hair-raising “bark” that sounds like something out of a horror movie.
Is THAT what makes that horror movie screech??
*****
I’m not sure I ever heard a Screech owl.
I could have described the Barred owl “bark” better — it’s a series of ascending barks in quick succession like — “ack…ack…Ack…ACk…ACK…ACK…ACK!!!. Nothing at all like a “hoot” sound.
One spring in the mornings I also heard an odd, soft, descending, high-pitched “whistle” that I never heard before. After a few days, I took the binoculars out to pinpoint it up in the trees — and it was a Barred owl. Totally unexpected. In fact, there were 4 or 5 of them right nearby calling. They only did this for a week or two, so I figured it was their mating calls.
One Barred owl would hang around the house in trees even in the day, sometimes only 10 ft up. I approached it right underneath quite a few times, and it never seemed to mind — just stared calmly back. It got agitated when it saw my cat, tho.
Rational Debate says:
February 26, 2011 at 12:27 am
Screech owls don’t make sounds that would usually qualify for your ‘Hollywood’ soundtrack. They are too small, so not too impressive volume wise, and not all that wierd sounding. So I would bet what you are hearing are Barred Owls. Along with the usual ‘who-cooks-for-you’ and the call that ‘beng’ just described, they also do single hoots and a variety of other wierd calls including, mostly near their nesting trees, what I call ‘monkey chatter’ which kind of sounds like a crazed chimp, or two going back and forth.
Another possibility is a Long-eared Owl, which I’m sure you have around there but are extremely secretive and easy to never see. They also produce some very wierd calls.
But I still have extreme doubts about GHOs doing in those kittens. I didn’t bother to check what wiki says but the scenario you decribe with them eating heads is typically just when prey – like snowshoe hares or voles – is hyperabundant. And I doubt kittens are. And those heads were missing, not pecked open, and the rest of the body (meat) was just left? Hmmm.
But if you have tons of feral cats around, they are definitely competing with owls for food so maybe this is war! 😉
All those cats must be rather hard on the local small bird population too.
beng says:
February 26, 2011 at 6:56 am
Barred Owls call at all times of the day, more on cloudy days in daylight.
Having 5 in one area suggests a family group more than a mating season gathering – unless the population there is insanely high. The juveniles make a high pitched hissing call, which could be interpreted as a whistling call, which is a ‘begging’ and contact call directed to their parents. They keep this up for a few weeks max after leaving the nest. That could be what you heard.
Anyhow, if you want to know what kind of owls you have in your area, the simplest thing to do is spend time outside at night in early spring when they call the most (Feb-Apr depending on where you are) or, if you want to speed things up, get a tape of their calls and use that… many will respond to taped calls. But just don’t use tapes too much in the same place as it throws them off and wastes their energy.
And those tapes are great for learning the typical territorial owl calls too, though they rarely include the wierd ones we are discussing here.
Rational Debate says:
February 26, 2011 at 12:27 am
Just checked your photo and source. It is a good article on the GHO. That decapitated prey looks like an Arctic Fox to me, which fits the prey hyper-abundance scenario, as they get abundant when some of their – and GHO – subarctic prey pops reach their cyclic peak. But whatever it is I see another part of it has been ripped open, unlike the kittens. Still wonder if some big tom isn’t doing that…
*****
Al Gored says:
February 26, 2011 at 11:13 am
beng says:
February 26, 2011 at 6:56 am
Barred Owls call at all times of the day, more on cloudy days in daylight.
Having 5 in one area suggests a family group more than a mating season gathering – unless the population there is insanely high. The juveniles make a high pitched hissing call, which could be interpreted as a whistling call, which is a ‘begging’ and contact call directed to their parents. They keep this up for a few weeks max after leaving the nest. That could be what you heard.
*****
You’re right, it was a soft, distorted, rough “whistle” — hissing would be a better description. And your crazed “monkey chatter” description is better than mine, too. ACK!! ACK!!
When I was at that house, a Pileated woodpecker took a liking to chopping on the main bay-window frame at first morning light, eventually chopping it to shreds. The whole window had to be replaced. I guessed it was the “reflection” thing where the male sees a competitor in the window & attacks in agitation. Seen the same thing happen w/other birds. A Pileated is a dead-ringer for Woody woodpecker w/the same maniacal behavior. ha-Ha-HA-HA!-ha. hahahahahahaha.
otropogo says: February 25, 2011 at 11:11 am
[…]
If this documentation is genuine, it suggests to me that such an accumulation of juveniles have aggregated in the less desirable terrain avoided by the big toms that they have become something of an extended family, hunting together, as sibling juveniles do.
Steve Keohane says:
February 26, 2011 at 5:48 am
“That would be a reasonable assumption. However, the four I saw, live in an area with a lot of deer, elk, wild turkeys, rabbits, mink, etc. There is a lot of wild food…”
I’m assuming the big toms like to avoid human contact, as well as feline, and that it’s a major delimiting factor of their territories. Here, in the Southern Rocky Mt. Trench, the village of Invermere has had cougars roaming the streets most years, although there’s no shortage of deer out in the surrounding area. They’ve killed everything from cats and dogs to sheep right by residences in fairly densely occupied areas.
I’ve seen cat tracks close to town most years, but in a quarter century of roaming the backcountry, I’ve only seen one cougar in the wild – and that was on a fairly remote logging road some 20 miles from the nearest village.
As hunting in the area has declined with increasing public antipathy, growing red tape, and higher costs (the young find getting started far too costly, and the rules too complicated, while the old hunters are retiring from the field), mule deer have taken up residence in the developed areas of the valley. These fourth, fifth, or more- generation urban deer are about as easy prey as an adult cougar could ask for (other than human children), and yet they remain untouched as far as anyone knows.
To me this supports the idea that an adult cougar’s primary concern is to avoid proximity to human settlements (although this doesn’t mean they won’t stalk a human of any size in their territory – I know several local hunters who’ve had close calls). The juvenile’s prime concern, OTOH, is to avoid contact with an adult tom, and that might bring them into the developed areas. Once there, the combination of abundant food and the proximity of other juveniles could conceivably socialize them into a co-operative hunting group.
Lots of speculation based on little evidence, admittedly. But strange predatory behavior is popping up elsewhere, most notably fatal attacks on humans by coyotes (two that killed a small woman hiker in Nova Scotia) and a lone wolf (who killed a healthy young man in Ontario).
I believe the 8 mountain lion photo is a faked. It appears pieced together. One lion appears in the exact same position and same pose in two pictures with the others moved around. One source says this is near Brady, Texas, one says Lake Oroville, Ca and one say Washington. Multiple locations seems to be a common tactic used in Internet fakes.