Hounds used by researchers kill emaciated cougar
CHRIS MERRILL Star-Tribune environment reporter | Posted: Friday, February 1, 2008 12:00 am
LANDER - Hound dogs released to tree a 7-month-old cougar last Friday unexpectedly caught and killed the kitten - an episode that is almost unheard of, according to scientists involved in an ongoing mountain lion research project in northwest Wyoming.
The accident happened when biologists from Craighead Beringia South's Teton Cougar Project were trying to capture and collar the kitten of an already radio-collared female cougar in the northwest section of Grand Teton National Park, near Moran Junction.
For this particular capture, the Teton Cougar Project was working in concert with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and the National Park Service.
Teton Cougar Project biologists had been tracking the collared cat and its kitten for a couple of weeks after notifying Game and Fish that the carnivores were making frequent visits to a private ranch within the national park, where the owners keep horses.
Howard Quigley, leader of the project, said everyone involved is devastated by the loss of the kitten.
Cats of any size in this country are genetically programmed to go up a tree when dogs are on their trail, Quigley said.
The dogs ran down this particular kitten, he said, because it was emaciated and its muscles had atrophied, apparently as the result of starvation.
As a rule, running up a tree is a dependable reaction that scientists frequently rely upon to temporarily capture lions for research.
Most cats don't need to see a dog to be treed, Quigley said, because the hounds bark and bay continuously while they're tracking, and usually a mountain lion will tree itself as soon as it hears the dogs.
"We've used dogs with kittens that were 4 months old," Quigley said. "The cats are never in any danger."
Quigley's organization, along with the Game and Fish Department and the Park Service, called the accident a "setback" in a jointly prepared statement Thursday.
Game and Fish took the opportunity to publicly endorse the ongoing project, commending Craighead Beringia South for its "professionalism and vital research data."
"While we're all disappointed in the loss of the kitten, we will continue to support the work of the Teton Cougar Project," said Tim Fuchs, district supervisor for Game and Fish in Jackson.
Quigley said his team believes it is witnessing the demise of the kitten's 12-year-old mother. She had three kittens last summer, he said, and three weeks ago when she made an elk kill she still had all three kittens with her. But between then and last Friday she'd somehow lost two kittens, and the third one was in "horrible condition" when the dogs caught it.
"What we ran up against is a female that was getting old, and probably having a hard time raising a family," Quigley said. "She's a 12-year old cat, which is very old in the life of a cougar."
Until this winter the female, known to the researchers as F101, had been the most productive breeding female in the history of the project, but that looks to be coming to an end, he said.
Environment reporter Chris Merrill can be reached at chris.merrill@trib.com.