We are conducting surveys, monitoring, and research on cougars (puma, mountain lion) on the Ladder Ranch in south-central New Mexico. Here, cougars are of particular interest given their effects on state-endangered desert bighorn sheep and other valuable big game. These projects are also resources for training and education, most notably through the Cougar Field Workshop.

Friday, April 18, 2008



Last Wednesday I examined the mule deer kill made by LF-1 around April 2nd, that Harley had found. There was little left at the site other than fur, ruminant material, a leg and a jawbone. The kill was probably made at the top of a grassy and shrubby ridge, then dragged down the slope approximately 50m, and cached three separate times under small shrubby oaks along the way. The cache sites were about 10m from each other, the above pictures include a close up of the second cache site which contained most of the exposed ruminant material, the drag mark from the 2nd to the 3rd cache site, and a view of the slope where the kill was found (the probable kill site is marked with a "K" and the cache sites are numbered). I also found that the intestines of the deer had been dragged away to a nearby fourth site. She was on this kill for at least 11 days and it seems she spent a lot of time moving and caching the kill.

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