CougarMagic

But Wait, There's More

2012-01-08T02:58:00.000-08:00

Back in October, we were so excited to capture two cougar kittens on camera, in the Verdugos. Suddenly, the population there went from one, to four (mom must be around somewhere, although we never saw her.) Surprise, and some dismay that a month later two tiny kittens were found underneath someone's car in Burbank, and whisked away to Zoo to You, an educational facility in Paso Robles. Their lives were saved, and they'll have a pretty luxurious life there, but it meant that there really was only room for one lion in the Verdugos. That wild areas have gotten so small that other animals couldn't make it more than a few short weeks. And I would have loved to see them on camera again.

But as much as camera trapping has opened a huge window into observing wildlife, we still only see one tiny spot of real estate, for a brief few seconds. The real detective work is left to biologists, and my hat's off to them for figuring out mysteries like this.

Are these our October kittens, growing fast? Did a litter of four somehow get split up? Or has a completely new family moved in recently, in search of better hunting?

Not to be overshadowed, this less mysterious male has been making rounds in the San Gabriels following mule deer. Whole Foods indeed...

Where's Waldo?

2011-12-22T12:48:00.000-08:00

Geez, look at that belly!

Small Cat Week

2011-12-11T17:37:00.001-08:00

In honor of Nat Geo Wild's "Big Cat Week", I present to you my own miniature version. My episode is only 16 seconds long, and contains just two small big cats. Since it is a first for me to see kittens, and also a complete and total surprise, I consider it more momentous than anything second tier cable has to offer!

A New Perspective

2011-11-23T15:24:00.001-08:00

Tired of seeing only tails, and few beautiful lion faces, I decided something had to be done. The lions, usually oblivious to my clever attempts at various scent lures, and entirely unpredictable in their timing and direction of travel, could not be reasoned with. (Whoever said they regularly patrol their territories, using habitual routes, has a couple revisions to make in their study!) Anyway, a simple solution - two cameras, facing opposite directions! Eyes in the back of your head, like they do in India to keep from becoming Tiger Chow (also not scientifically verified for efficacy, but I admit I'd try it.)

He paused - not to examine my expensive cologne lure, no - he was smelling fox urine. Look at the gorgeous color on this fox's head! I haven't seen them in daylight much.

And to top it off, my little ringed friend is back.

I have some nice bear footage, but I think I'll hold off until after hunting season. There are two females with cubs here, that are not yet weaned. I don't want to encourage anyone to hunt in this area for that reason. Anyway, they are all small, so hunters - you're not really missing anything.

It's the little things

2011-10-08T20:50:00.001-07:00

There is nothing more fun than a complete surprise capture on a trailcam.

I guess this makes me Goldilocks.

2011-10-08T20:43:00.000-07:00

One of these bears is very big (the boar), three of them are very small (the cubs), and two are just right (mamas). There are six different bears here! No doubt feasting on a bumper crop of manzanita berries.

Priorities

2011-08-24T17:47:00.000-07:00

It's always fun pointing out to people that I am in fact a dog-person, not a cat person. I've also had friends tell me they saw bear tracks, but add the disclaimer "well, but you're probably not that interested in bears, right?" In fact all wildlife is exciting to me. I'm even learning to track ground squirrels and frogs.

Even so, perhaps it comes as some surprise if I now eagerly post some recent bear videos, and add on a couple of "ho hum" cougar shots at the end. (I sort of feel obligated to...)

The last sighting of this bear and her cub made it appear as though the mother bear was losing fur. There is only one explanation for that here, and that's mange. Tiny mites living in the skin, causing intense itching and hair loss until the animal can't tolerate cold temperatures anymore, and the skin becomes secondarily irritated with bacterial infections. A long, miserable way to go. I wondered how I could help her. And I wondered if I shouldn't interfere.

I thought about this bear and her cub a lot. I was happy to see that her fur appears normal now. She may have been molting this spring, or maybe she was scruffy from dirt, or the sticky leaves of phacelia plants that are now drying and going to seed.

I expect she and her growing cub will do just fine this winter.

Hits and Misses

2011-08-10T12:02:00.000-07:00

In the past week I've checked several cameras. One was defective (batteries were dead, and zero videos taken), one had dead batteries after only 10 days and missed out on a month of activity, and one had nothing but a squirrel and a bobcat butt. But...! I had a great series of captures again at a very good location on Cam #4. I also took an amazing tracking class from Dick Newell down in Orange County, that vastly improved my tracking skills.

Young female lion in the San Gabriels:

Mother bear and cub:

The Next Generation

2011-07-06T18:55:00.000-07:00

Several areas in the Station Fire burn area have reopened to public use. A tremendous effort was made to save the historic structures of the Mt. Wilson Observatory, and a great side effect was a decent sized patch of unburned oak woodland surrounding them. The wildlife in most areas was hit hard, but this "island" was certainly a refuge.

This place has it all. A few good water sources, lots of shade and cover (and stalking habitat), healthy manzanita producing sugar-rich berries, and loads of acorns. The result is a home for one adult lion and her ~8 month old kitten, one king male black bear, a mama and her two cubs, several healthy mule deer, and a young gray fox. Toss in some squirrels for good measure.

May they grow strong and go on to reclaim the forest.

Once more, with feeling

2011-06-10T19:15:00.000-07:00

Well gosh, this is starting to seem a bit too easy! Another nice view (daytime!) on Tuesday May 31st at 6pm. Dinnertime. So far, each time I have hiked up to check this camera I've seen tracks on the nearby fire road every time. We've had a lot of rain this spring so I know the tracks are fresh. It would be too great a coincidence that we'd keep the same schedule (about every four to five weeks), so I have to assume he just likes to use the road frequently as an easy way to get from one end of the range to the other.

Turn up the sound on this one. You can hear Jughead panting in the afternoon heat.

This footage is great, because it shows something that explains how cougars walk silently. This is the "direct register" walk - when an animal places its hind foot in exactly the spot its front foot landed. The front foot smooshes down the dried leaves, or gravel, and then the next footstep is silent. This way they cut the noise they make in half. When tracking, this can be somewhat frustrating since it doubles the print and often distorts it. You may not be able to get enough detail to positively ID the track as a lion track, or get a nice accurate measurement of the size. In this case, he's making quite a lot of noise but be assured if he were actively stalking something you wouldn't hear a thing.

Jughead returns

2011-05-13T12:36:00.000-07:00

April 17th at 1:15 am saw the return of this large male lion to his remote ridgetop trail in the Verdugos. There were also fresh tracks on the dirt road - less than 24 hours old, since it had recently drizzled the previous cool spring morning. An astute Cougarfan commented that he seems to get fatter every time we see him, and I agree. There have been no reports of attacks on pets in the area. Not even any sightings by hikers. So he's a good kitty, staying out of everyone's way, while making a nice living on deer and rabbits.

Using the word "return" is not very accurate, as it seems he is a permanent resident here and probably has been for a few years.

Social Climber

2011-05-09T11:29:00.000-07:00

This winter, I left a camera out in the San Gabriels for over six months. I knew it had been pounded several snow and rain storms, as well as freezing temperatures.

There are several questions I pessimistically always have when retrieving a camera. Is it still there? Cameras have been known to disappear (both humans and bears are notorious thieves). Does it still work? (The related question here is "Did I remember to turn it on?" which has sadly been answered with "no" on a couple of embarassing occasions). If all these factors line up in my favor, the last thing I'm happy about is getting good footage.

This set was a "Win" in all aspects. I've been watching this young bear since he was a little fuzz ball back in 2009. His mother is still around, and very healthy too! (She's the bigger bear in the last clip) The young bear is smelling castoreum I placed on the tree.

The little tyke back in October '09:

Icing on the cake was the beautiful hike I went on with my friends.

Bobcat Hoarding

2011-05-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

I seem to have a knack for finding the hot spots for Lynx Rufus. Of course it helps that it's springtime, and the bunnies are out. In this spot, I would love to see some kittens, or one of these adults with a nice meal in his mouth.

When it rains, it pours

2011-01-09T16:30:00.000-08:00

The Verdugo Mountains are proving to be a gold mine for lion videos. This is the same guy from my December 9th post (which I can't link to for some reason...) I've had three cameras out for 6 weeks in this area now, and although there is not much scientific rigor, I am starting to think there is only one big cat here after all. I saw two parallel lines of tracks, heading in the same direction, and knew they were laid down that night since it had rained. However, they were the same size (as much as I could tell from muddy soil), and since then I've gotten several videos of what looks like the same individual. Of course, they all look the same, but this one has a big block head and always a full belly.

The fun is in finding out! Check back in a couple of weeks, when I hope to have more footage of this good looking brute!

Bobbed TAIL...

2010-12-19T12:55:00.000-08:00

Not bobbed HEAD!

("Never work with animals or children" - W. C. Fields)

Alley Cat

2010-12-09T17:22:00.000-08:00

I recently read a short news article about some residents in La Crescenta, CA who had seen two mountain lions sauntering down their suburban street. With some scoffing, I thought "When will these city dwellers ever learn? I know we all love a good story, but you just don't look out your front window and watch mountain lions hanging out together in subdivisions!" Sure they were misrepresenting a couple of coyotes or bobcats, I still sent the article to my friend Matt, figuring he would get a good scoff out of it, too.

Matt said "I know the hiking trails around there - let's go put your cameras up and see what we get!"

And so, with apologies to the residents of the Verdugo foothill communities, (and some delicious humble pie) I give you:

The Verdugo "Mountains", if you can scoffingly call them that, make up an area of about 14 (count 'em) square miles. Ringed with houses and freeways, entertaining hundreds of hikers and mountain bikers daily, and host to a few radio towers, one would think it could never support much wildlife. Certainly not a large predator. Absolutely not TWO large predators.

One would be wrong, again.

When setting up the cameras, we followed this parallel set of tracks for over half a mile. Two individuals currently reside here! We think they are Station Fire refugees. Hopefully they can tolerate each other long enough for one of them to be able to return to suitable, recovered hunting grounds in the San Gabriels.

The area is home to several bobcats as well.

Counting Sheep

2010-10-04T09:00:00.000-07:00

Earlier this spring, several friends of mine who hike in the San Gabriel Wilderness had some great bighorn sheep sightings over a period of a few weeks, and got beautiful photos of them too. I don't hike in sheep territory very often, so I had hoped to get one on camera, but never specifically made a plan to find them. With the help of the sightings, I now had a location to try. That got me out of the canyons and up onto a high ridge near Mt. Baldy. Not a quick, easy hike, so this camera stayed out several months evading damage by hikers, dead batteries from false triggers, and a few lightning storms. The setup was worth the effort and worry. Over the summer, a few lone sheep walked over this high saddle, but on September 1, at 7am, this group of rams watched the sunrise over some of Southern California's most beautiful wilderness.

The bighorn population in the San Gabriels is recovering with the help of the efforts of Fish & Game, and conservation groups. I believe the current estimate is between 200 and 300 individuals. Their main predator is the mountain lion.

Copied Cat

2010-07-30T09:01:00.000-07:00

A bit of luck! I was excited to find these three videos of two different mountain lions living in the Santa Monica mountains recently. The population there has been studied since 2002. Such charismatic animals can't help but become famous in a town like Los Angeles, and their stories read like the script of an adventure flick.

The one sporting the collar is P12. He is an adult male best known for crossing the 101 freeway and bringing much needed genetic diversity to the inbred population on this habitat "island". A couple of months ago, three kittens were born nearby and P12 was determined to be the father. Photographer Gary Valle has an excellent synopsis of the history of this population written up here: http://www.photographyontherun.com/MountainLionSaga.aspx

The uncollared lion is most likely a female, and biologists are interested in finding more about her as well.

Anyone interested in the outdoors or wildlife has heard the term "open space". On the surface, almost everyone agrees that open space is valuable. Learning about the complexity of the situation is fascinating, and also drives home its importance. These animals may have enough room to live and eat right now, but they need connectivity with other spaces to survive in the future. There are many different ways they are valuable. Some people simply like the idea that large animals are out there - it improves their "wilderness" experience. Predators keep the deer, rabbits, and mice populations in control - so even if you never hike, you can find value in keeping your lawns and gardens from being eaten. Growing up on the east coast, where large predators no longer exist, I remember a constant level of anxiety while driving. Hitting a deer (always a strong possibility) would at best ruin your day and cause expensive damage to your car, and at worst result in injuries and even deaths.

Mountain lions control coyote populations as well. Though you'd be right to fear a mountain lion eating your pets, you'd have much more to worry about with lots of hungry coyotes running around.

And lastly, for some people, not everything needs to have a direct effect on humans to be valuable. We have every comfort imaginable. These animals are fighting for their lives every single day. Building an underpass beneath a freeway, or deciding we don't need another housing development or strip mall seems a small compromise to allow them to continue to exist.

Smaller in stature but not in "value", here are the other species calling this canyon home:

Miscellaneous 'Magic

2010-06-18T19:42:00.000-07:00

So here are the latest goings-on in the armchair cougar-tracking world. I've had cougar tracks appear near (yet not in front of...) one of my cameras twice now. So in that location, I'm trying the Calvin Klein Obsession trick. In case you do not closely follow the latest in large feline scent attractants, apparently biologists have recently found that this popular cologne is a huge hit among jaguars, tigers, and other big cats. It sure smells better than beaver castoreum.

I did manage a mountain lion capture in one of my favorite local canyons. This guy was on the move though, and I just got the long tail disappearing into the night. (First you see a fox, then a bear, then the lion)

Other notables are this really healthy looking bobcat, and the always popular gray fox.

Getting warmer...

2010-03-31T14:18:00.000-07:00

No lion yet, but I am seeing more animal activity now that spring, and higher temperatures, are here. In one of the clips, the bobcat appears to get ready to pounce - one or two seconds more of video, and I would have gotten it! I've found that the bobcats are much more predictable in their travels than mountain lions (their small territories have a lot to do with this), so I know I'll see this one again while I wait for his big beautiful cousin to wander through.

This is the cutest fox video I've ever seen. He gets a little carried away rubbing on the scent lure!

Chasing my tail

2010-02-18T16:02:00.000-08:00

Trying to pinpoint one exact spot where an animal will go is not the easiest task. From a human perspective, certain routes are obviously easier to travel. But down on all fours, and a much smaller size, thick brush is not the same obstacle to a mountain lion or bobcat as it is to you or me. We've all seen deer head right up extremely steep slopes with no problems too. Generally, my friends and I look for tracks or scat, and if we find anything at all - even old sign - well, that's good enough! Of course, this means I put a camera where an animal was, in the past. It's like going to the Olympics a week late, and getting excited thinking about how cool the snowboarding must have been.

I've just retrieved most of my cameras from a several-week soak. Nothing spectacular. A nice bobcat, and a good looking bear. Couple of people on horses - that was new!

But I am now on the track of a very special cougar. I've seen this individual's tracks in three different places, on three different occasions now. So for the first time, instead of spreading the cameras around, they will all go in this territory, for as long as it takes. I will capture you on 'film', Bruiser - that's a promise!

Too Much Bobcat

2010-01-14T19:57:00.000-08:00

In LA, there is a saying - "You can never be too rich or too thin". You may however find yourself with too many bobcat videos. The following is about half the footage from this spot, but is still two minutes long:

This camera was in the Verdugo Mountains, a small ripple of earthquake fault just minutes from Burbank and Glendale; heavily used and enjoyed by city folk who only have an hour or two on the weekends to get out for some fresh air and exercise. Though rare, there has been the occasional mountain lion sighting here from time to time. Matt and I found a path that had been cleared by firefighters practicing their skills making firebreaks, which had many scrapes along it. Too small to be a cougar, but it was obviously some critter's daily commute. The cam was out barely two weeks, and captured 30 videos of these two bobcats. Look closely, and you will be able to tell them apart - one large adult, and a smaller juvenile (or female?). Their spot patterns are different, (the adult has muted spots, while the younger animal almost has rosettes) as are the stripes on the insides of their legs.

And anyone who has a pet cat will not be surprised at the scraping behavior (you can see it every day at the litterbox) but it shows that little has changed from your pet's wild ancestors. Watching this in action will also make it very easy to identify a scrape that you find on a trail - two strongly dug parallel lines, with a pile of dirt and leaves (and sometimes a little something extra...) at one end.

Thanks again to Matt who not only helped pick the spot, but waded through this wild litterbox to retrieve the cam while I was at work!

Read 'em and weep, hunters

2009-12-16T17:07:00.000-08:00

I am completely striking out on predators lately. There's going to be a lag while I find some new good spots. But they say, to find the lions, you just follow the deer - and man, have I found them! Mule deer are not usually the most interesting catch, unless you're a hunter, but it was interesting to me to figure out how many individuals there were in this bunch, by comparing their antlers. Seems like at least four different big bucks. Notice that one of them has broken one side of his rack.

And another short clip from a different location. These were taken way back in August.

Ringtail

2009-10-20T20:29:00.000-07:00

This is pretty cool. I had a tip from a friend that there might be a ringtail living in this particular canyon. This is a nocturnal animal, related somewhat to raccoons, that is very rarely seen. They aren't endangered, and are found throughout the southwest, but a combination of their habits and preferred habitat keep them out of sight of people. They are extremely agile, good jumpers, and eat just about anything - including insects, mice, and berries. Legend has it miners used to keep them around to rid their cabins of rodents, giving them the nickname "miner's cat". In size, they are smaller than a fox, and larger than a squirrel. This one seems to like the small pool of water at the base of a cascade in this narrow, sheltered canyon.

Friends in high places

2009-10-11T08:48:00.000-07:00

Way back in July, I hiked with a couple of friends along Pleasant View Ridge and placed this camera. It was the most remote location I've put a cam so far. I wanted to see if there was a difference in number or types of animals in a place few people ever go. Then came the fire, which looked like it would wipe out the whole mountain range, then the forest closure, then...oh crap, the forest is open, but how am I supposed to get way back up there now? Lucky for me, I know someone who has free time and likes this kind of challenge. He took a cross country ridge route to get this camera back, when it looked like the newer Sheep Fire might finish the job the Station Fire had started.

And as for the experiment - lots of deer, and this bear and her cub, but no other animals. It's pretty quiet up there. And I'm sure they like it that way.