"I had a deer in this hole and I was going to dig up the little feller and eat em up! Urrrrgggghh!"
Posted on 03/21/2021 5:50:25 PM PDT by SJackson
A camera-trap study in the Mendocino National Forest in Northern California reveals that black bears are adept at finding and stealing the remains of adult deer killed by pumas. This "kleptoparasitism" by bears, as scientists call it, reduces the calories pumas consume in seasons when the bears are most active. Perhaps in response to this shortage, the pumas hunt more often and eat more small game when the bears are not in hibernation.
The findings are published in the journal Basic and Applied Ecology.
Pumas, also known as mountain lions or cougars, are apex predators, but this doesn't mean they can't be threatened by other carnivores, said study lead author Max Allen, a research scientist at the Illinois Natural History Survey who studies big cats and other carnivorous mammals.
"Bears are dominant scavengers, and their large body size means that they can take carcasses from apex predators," Allen said. He and his colleagues became interested in this phenomenon when they saw signs of bear scat and bear claw marks near puma kills.
The researchers used GPS collars to track seven pumas across a 386-square-mile territory over a period of two years. Whenever a puma made a kill, it would repeatedly visit or spend a lot of time at that location. The researchers visited those sites to document the type of animals the puma had killed and to look for signs of bears. They also set up camera traps at many of the kill sites to determine which animals were eating the remains.
Illinois Natural History Survey wildlife ecologist Max Allen and his colleagues used GPS collars to track pumas and camera traps to observe how much they - and black bears - benefited from their kills. Credit: Max Allen The team documented 352 puma kills, of which 64 were animals other than deer. The smaller prey animals included dozens of squirrels, birds and rabbits, but also a coyote, two gray foxes, a fisher and two black bears. The pumas also went after fawns, which they can eat quickly, likely before a bear discovers them, Allen said.
The bears discovered kills of adult deer within about two days, cutting the pumas' feeding time at a deer carcass from 5-7 days in winter to about two days when the bears showed up.
The study found the highest frequency of puma kills ever reported. And the kill rate increased when bears were most active.
"There were only about 0.68 mountain lions per 100 square kilometers in our study area," Allen said. "An average number would be two to three. The average home range for a female in Santa Cruz is between 30 and 35 square kilometers. But in Mendocino it was over 200."
Pumas often bury their kills between feeding sessions to prevent loss of the meat to other carnivorous animals. Credit: Max Allen Despite the large territory available to them, pumas were not getting the full benefit of their kills. The amount they consumed varied month to month, from more than 190 pounds of meat in January, when bears were least active, to less than 110 pounds in April. Bear scavenging of adult deer carcasses was highest in the warmer months, but the researchers found evidence of bears at puma kills every month of the year.
"We found evidence to suggest that the bears are having an impact on pumas and how often they're killing deer," Allen said. "When a bear pushes a puma off of a carcass, the puma runs away, and the bear eats the deer. The puma then has to make another kill in order to get the energy it needs."
In the absence of black bears, pumas made a kill about once a week, Allen said.
"But in the presence of bears, they're killing every five to six days," he said. "They have to work harder, and they're getting less nutrition overall."
Pumas ought to check their privilege.
The cougars will do fine.
I knew it...Even the friggin bears are democrats
Bear ping.
Killed 2 black bears. I wonder how big the bears were?
It doesn’t sound like Pumas are apex predators, when bears are eating their lunch.
B, b, bu ,but, Critical Animal Diversity !
"I had a deer in this hole and I was going to dig up the little feller and eat em up! Urrrrgggghh!"
Someone just discovered that water is wet. Cats and some birds like fresh meat, bears and buzzards like ripe meat. That is well known by every old trapper on the face of the earth but these yahoos just figured it out.
Old trick, If you want to find a fresh cat kill follow the magpies and you will find that fresh kill and if you stick around for awhile you will find the cat too.
If you watch for the buzzards in the area for a few days and then return to the kill you will find mr bear and the buzzards.
I was raised in the norcal Sierra Nevada mountains hunting, fishing and trapping. I knew how this worked before I hit my teenage years. I am now 66.
How is it that the fish and game biologists just figured it out?
How this really applies to the wildlife balance is that if the bears run the cats off of their kills the lions will kill more small game but mostly they will kill more deer. So, the estimates of how many deer the mountain lions are killing is way short.
Since the city folks saw fit to remove the big cats from any and all controls by the Cali fish and game the deer populations in cali have caught hell. Because of a popular vote (with the vast majority of votes coming out of SF and LA), I am saying that the state officials can not legally do anything, no actions, to control or manage the mountain lion health, distribution, and population in California.
This might take a bit of thinking, but with the ways the cali laws are on the big cats leaves the state fish and game and biologists only one option and one tool to control their apex predator. They simply look the other way when the ranchers and others kill them effectively thinning their population and density.
That is what happens when the mountain men and the wildlife expert women in San Francisco and LA who have never even seen a mountain lion in the wild are allowed to make the decision that it is illegal to manage them in any way.
I believe that every time there is a problem with a big cat the lion should be live trapped and let loose in golden gate park. Then we can let all the experts in SF “not deal” with them.
Exactly.
What use to common knowledge among country folks.
Has been lost on all the city dewlers.
In Canada, we follow the ravens.
Thanks!
Have you seen any bears up in your neck of the woods?
We have black bears all over western and even central New Jersey. And the only cougars we have here like to hang out certain shore bars in the summer.
Black Bear lives matter, even when they steal for a living.
Have you seen any bears up in your neck of the woods?
See them every spring for a couple opf weeks and then in September and October until all the wild apples are gone.
They are regulars and seem to know my scent here on my 100 acres, and avoid me.In the fall I carry my 12 ga. pump loaded with rifled slugs.Never had to pull it in 8 years.
They are lions, but they call them pumas because they live in CA and have an accent.
I was raised in the norcal Sierra Nevada mountains hunting, fishing and trapping. I knew how this worked before I hit my teenage years. I am now 66.
Just another nature article explaining the fundamentals to us uninformed suburban folk. Seriously, most Americans are so cut-off from nature that the simplest things are revelations.
Bears are bad ass. News at 11:00.
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