Sometimes you can gauge how much a particular species of wildlife haunts our collective psyche by the number of names we’ve assigned to it. Such is the case with the Mountain Lion. Variously monikered as Cougar, Catamount, Panther, Painter, Nittany Lion, Puma, Cat-a-mountain, American Lion, and (in scientific nomenclature) Puma concolor, this often-pondered, yet rarely encountered cat seems like an ephemeral shadow amidst the complex jumble of Sky Island plant communities that it frequents.
My own encounters with Mountain Lions, though few, have been memorable and even life-altering. Back in the late 90’s, as I lay fast asleep in another realm of shadows I was bolted awake in the middle of the night by what I construed to be a woman screaming. My half lucid mind concocted a woman giving birth in the Desert Scrub near where I was camping! Soon, however, it dawned upon me that the “screams” were too regular in both frequency and character to be a human. This was a Cougar calling in the night for reasons that will forever be cloaked in mystery to me.
Several years passed until I once again crossed paths with a Puma. While out gathering data for a tracking workshop I paused to take a photo of a deer print. As I recorded some pertinent data under the canopy of a dense canyon riparian forest, I half caught the movement of an animal about 50 yards upstream from me. Feeling a strong impulse to have a close wildlife encounter, I began to “fish” for the unknown mammal by imitating the sound of a wounded rabbit. This high-pitched squeal is the lagomorph equivalent of you or I screaming while being eaten by some large predator. As such, it must sound like a dinner bell to all suitable carnivores.
Thus, within minutes of casting my auditory bait to the four winds I had a large, male Coati ( a mostly tropical member of the Raccoon family) doing a mamba of sorts at my feet! It shuffled back and forth trying to rectify the incongruous meeting of a crying Cottontail with a hulking human here in its sylvan retreat. After contemplating the personal meaning of seeing my own reflection in the eyes of the Coati (yes, it was that close) I began to jot a series of self-satisfied notes on this amazing wild rendezvous. While thus engaged I suddenly felt eyes upon me in the sort of intuitive way that one can only comprehend once its happened to you. Faster than a flash of lightning my eyes locked with those of a smallish Lion!
Knowing that this might indeed be a once-in-a-lifetime encounter, I anxiously fiddled with the controls of the camera - its now very inconvenient automatic shut-off feature prompting a few silent curses. Our eyes had met, however, and in classic cat style it slowly turned and slunk away from where it had been crouching at the base of some Willows edging a fetching mountain stream. It soon was gracefully navigating its way across the watercourse and melting into the secret confines of the forest. Hungry for more views of this fabulous feline, I correctly guessed where it might emerge from the woods, and watched it recross the creek - now downstream from me. A few deft rock hops and it was gone for good.
This close encounter of the cat kind rocked my world. Up to this point Mountain Lions had merely roamed the landscape of my imagination and, once, woken me to with a curdling cry in the dark. They were more mythic than real. David Quammen eloquently writes in his book Monster of God that top predators like the Mountain Lion hold an esteemed place in our minds as gods, spirits, sources of inspiration, as well as of fear and loathing. Such was the case with the American Lion for me. Even the relatively small size of this lion (90 pounds?) and its nonthreatening demeanor did nothing to take away from the reverence and awe that infused my body and soul upon finally seeing a Cougar in the wild!
Prior to this clandestine canyon-cat meeting I had read much about Mountain Lions in an effort to understand this majestic creature. Like most wild felids they are generally solitary, except when a mother has young or when a male consorts with a female for breeding, which can happen year-round. She alone raises the young. Male territories are larger than that of females and tend to overlap several of the latter, allowing for an effective breeding system. Males are generally much larger than females and can weigh up to 200 pounds, particularly in more northernly climes and where prey is abundant. Their diet includes small game up to large ungulates, including elk. A deer would be a typical meal for a Lion, which might kill about one per week on average.
My next and only other direct encounter with the shadow was less personal, but no less compelling. While leading a small group on a Naturalist’s saunter, I suddenly registered a Lion placidly drinking from another canyon stream. Perched upon all fours, it quickly realized that potential danger in the form of humans was slowly creeping its way. Accordingly and prudently it quickly slunk away as I, losing all of my normal composure as a Nature Guide, yelled “Mountain Lion” several times. Luckily the first few people in the cue caught a glimpse of the slinking feline, aided by the cacophony of Mexican Jays that were heralding the presence of the retreating big cat with their raucous cries.
My final Lion’s tale took place at Raven’s Nest, our 42-acre Nature Sanctuary, just this past July in the sweltering heat of the Monsoon. Several of my students reported that there was a loud clashing of hooves up a small draw near their campsite during the previous dusk. As the two were teenagers, I pondered if they were prone to inadvertent exaggeration. Never-the-less I suggested that we investigate the scene. Soon one of them was calling my attention to a deer carcass that lay a few feet above the bottom of the brushy arroyo. Clearly a large predator or predators had come this way last night.
I was soon thinking Lion as I closely inspected the Deer. It was a Mule Deer doe in her prime. She had been fat with the largess of the monsoon and, judging by her dentition, was perhaps 4 - 5 years old. Apparently this was no culling of the weak or sick, unless the doe took the evidence of some unknown ailment to her would-be grave. There were two tell-tale canine marks indicting where this cat had employed a suffocating throat hold to subdue her rather large prey. The kill site itself was clean and lacking the disorder that I felt a pack of Coyotes would leave. Further, it would be a helluva an ambitious predation by those somewhat meager canines. Finally, the removal of the meat indicated one cat, as opposed to several wild canids, as told by the surgical precision with which it had been eaten rather than scattered.
What a thrilling event and in our own backyard more or less! Gazing at those deer bones still infuses me with a surge of inspiration, much the same as our hunter-gatherer ancestors must have felt while in reverence of this majestic cat.
Sure enough our neighbors, though few and far between, reported seeing a lion in the vicinity during that same time period. A few months later I serendipitously encountered someone who had recently experienced a run-in with a Mountain Lion. As I had an urgent engagement, I quickly listened to how she discovered the Lion looming over her dead cat. How she felt the lion “menacing” her at close range near the dead tabby and of her reporting the encounter to some local “wildlife officials” Here’s where it occurred to me - and not for the first time - that people can be very intelligent in general, yet be rather daft and naive when it comes to Nature, if not predators themselves. I say this for her follow-up comment was how surprised she was that those “wildlife officials” were going to try to track the cat with dogs with the aim of killing it.
Call me a cynic, a stoic, or simply a wildlife biologist with a much softer spot for wildlife than for most humans or pets, but this whole scenario made me literally bite my tongue as I reluctantly listened to it. First of all - welcome to the Sky Islands, as yes, we thankfully still have a few large predators here! Secondly, the lion did all of the birds, small mammals, and reptiles in the area a service by eliminating an unnatural predator in the form of a marauding house cat (best to keep them inside for everyone’s sake). They are not native and the havoc that they wreak upon various ecosystems is well-documented.
Further, I will defend to my last breath the inherent right of an alpha predator to behave like an alpha predator! What does “the Lion menaced me” mean anyway? Apparently in this case it referred to the fact that this cat did not turn tail and flee like a frightened rabbit. Good for it. We need some bad-ass cats and other predators out there, if only as a not-so-subtle reminder that we are not the most powerful or most beautiful, or even the most mystical creatures roaming this planet. In all of these realms Cougars trump us in my mind.
Nor are they particularly dangerous in the scheme of things. Take note of the fact that only 23 known fatalities from Mountain Lions were documented for the entire U.S. and Canada between 1890 and 2011! Compare this to 5500 recorded dog bites in Maricopa County, AZ just in 2010 and to 32 dog induced fatalities in the U.S. in 2009. Yet despite the obvious implication - among others that you should fear you neighbor’s mutt a lot more that any imagined encounter with Mountain Lion - people sometimes seem deathly afraid of these cats
If you do happen upon one, then it will likely melt away as both of mine did. If it were to appear threatening or “menacing”, then you should assume the role of alpha predator. Look big, yell, scream, throw things, but do not run. This last, albeit foolish, option may well trigger an attack due to the natural predatory instincts of all cats. If actually attacked, then fight like hell, as your life now depends upon it. “Playing dead” would soon net you the result of “being dead” - a result that will come soon enough!
To put all of this in context, preparing for a Mountain Lion attack, however wise that may seem is nearly on a par with preparing for an invasion by the tiny country of San Marino - a well-known military power....
Mountain Lions are not only the least of our worries to life and limb, they are more oft than not the recipients of the highest form of disrespect there is to life in my opinion. Namely, they wind up as a trophy on the wall of some inane hunter who thinks that his (for its almost always “men” doing this) manhood depends on his conquest of wildlife with a gun. Thus, according to AZ Game & Fish yearly kills of Mountain Lions have lately averaged 250 - 350 animals. They list it as a “harvest”, as if people were gathering wheat. The total population of the state they reckon to be around 2500 to 3000 Lions - hardly a crush of crouching cats poised to do us harm!
In light of this alarming cat carnage consider the world that Quammen poses to us, again in The Monster of God. Given the alarming decline of alpha predators not only in North America, but on the planet at large what will our world look like in 10, 50, 100 years? What would it feel like to inhabit and explore a landscape devoid of Mountain Lions, Bear, Jaguars, Tigers, Crocodiles, sharks and other toothy terrors? I believe that it would be a very depauperate one indeed, lacking the beauty, inspiration, and reality checks that these potentially lethal predators provide to us, just by knowing that they are there.
So, as I contemplate the future of Mountain Lions in the Sky Islands and beyond, I find myself envisioning our region repopulated by not only more Mountain Lions, but by our full complement of alpha and not-so-alpha predators. Instead of roaming a land devoid of anything more threatening or inspiring than a Raccoon (no offense, I love them too!) I see one where I have at least a chance of encountering Mexican Wolves, Jaguars, Grizzly Bear, Ocelots, Coyotes, Mountain Lions, Bobcats, Grey Foxes, American Badgers, Black Bear, and an assortment of other predators that make me feel like I’m in a truly wild and thrilling place. Life is not safe and I, for one, am content to share the Sky Islands with the Cat-a-Mountain - even if to most people it remains an elusive and potentially malevolent shadow!
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