focus on nature

focus on nature Mountain Lion, Cougar, Puma or Panther — by Any Name, This Survivor Is One Cool Cat

Right there," whispered Arizona Game and Fish biologist Stan Cunningham, his voice taut with leashed excitement.

"Where?" I muttered in frustration, my binoculars scanning the jumble of granite boulders strewn among gnarled piñon pines on the slope of the dry streambed below us.

Suddenly, beneath the weather-beaten tree, the cave came into focus. From inside, the mountain lion stared lazily out into the rising heat, past the rocky slopes of the steep-sided canyon in southeastern Arizona where Cunningham directs a research project studying the lifestyles and eating habits of the cat with so many names: It's also called cougar, catamount, panther and puma.

His team collared six lions the first year, but hunters killed five of them. The sixth was killed by another lion. For two more years, they studied lions in this rural corner of Arizona, tagging a total of 24.

Through the binoculars, I could see the radio collar that was emitting the signal beeping steadily now on the receiver Stan clutched. We'd located this 10-year-old female a few hours earlier by flying overhead in a Game and Fish plane. We then drove to the edge of the rugged canyon where she spent most of her time stalking deer, javelinas, rabbits and calves.

Now we stood on a ridge 200 yards from where she'd holed up to pass the heat of the day. She lay there dozing in indolent grace like a housecat on a windowsill, one of nature's survivors. But she hasn't had it easy. The early colonists required Indians to bring them several mountain lion skins annually or face public flogging. And today ranchers, hunters and government trappers still hunt them throughout most of the West.

An estimated 2,500 lions remain scattered across Arizona. People who live their whole lives in the heart of lion country may never see one, although at night they may hear a wild cry sometimes described as the sound of a terrified woman or a lost infant. Mountain lions figure largely in the myths of most North American Indian groups. They appear in thousand-year-old petroglyphs. The Aztecs called them "the killers." Navajos consider them messengers from the gods who bring healing herbs to humans. The Havasupais use the gall of the lion to instill courage.

Mountain lions grow up to 9 feet in length and weigh up to 160 pounds. They can leap 15 feet from tree to tree, 20 feet up onto a ledge or 40 feet in a single forward leap downhill. Expert stalkers, they wield a special killing claw and can sever a prey's spine in a single bite with their sharp incisors. Next, they open the stomach and chest cavity, remove certain internal organs to reduce spoilage, eat their fill and hide the body under dirt, leaves or grass for another meal later. The lions will remain close by the kills, eating them until they spoil.

Every so often, mountain lions kill people. California biologist Paul Beier documented the 53 North American attacks of the past century 30 of them in British Columbia. Nine of the attacks proved fatal, most of them involving small children. That works out to about one death per decade.

Lions are fond of calves. Cunningham and Harley Shaw, another Game and Fish biologist, conducted two five-year studies of mountain lions in Arizona and concluded that although lions live mostly on deer, calves account for 30 to 40 percent of their diet. All told, lions eat about 20 percent of the calves born each year. However, Shaw notes that hunting the lions might make the problem worse by destabilizing lion populations.

Normally, a lion keeps competitors out of his 20-squaremile territory, which means two or three lions might move in to replace a lion killed by traps or hunters. That's why Shaw says controlling the cattle-breeding season and keeping closer tabs on young calves might do more to protect them than killing lions.

Despite apparently healthy populations, mountain lions remain virtually unseen. But when Cunningham and I spied one dozing in a cave, we wanted a closer look. We made our way carefully down the slope, keeping the cave in sight until we got down to the stream-bed. We crept around the last corner and stared into an empty cave. The radio transmitter now picked up only static. Then we scrambled down to where the gully opened onto a much larger canyon, and the signal suddenly returned. This time it came from the opposite side of the canyon. Had our mountain lion actually left her hiding place, climbed down 1,000 feet to the canyon floor, crossed sheer cliffs on each side and scaled halfway up the opposite slope?

We sat for an hour on the sun-heated rocks, scanning the steep hillside with binoculars. The radio signal came and went, like a ghost at a seance in a thunderstorm, but we never saw another trace of her.

As the sun began to set, we toiled up the slope to the truck to drive back to our electric lights, leaving the graceful mountain lion in possession of the night.