Naturalists learn about living with lions at large

By Gary Raham
Nature Writer and Illustrator

Nothing focuses one's attention better than to be regarded as a prospective meal by a hungry mountain lion. Fortunately, I shared my one personal encounter with this striking animal in the company of other hikers.

Collectively, we must have looked like more trouble than we were worth as potential snack food. Relentless eyes quickly transformed to a tawny rear end disappearing behind gnarled mountain mahogany.

That brief sighting represents the only lion I have personally seen after hiking 30 years in lion country. An estimated 5,000 or more mountain lions (Puma concolor) live in Colorado, but they are reclusive hunters that only tend to encounter humans as we appropriate more and more territory that was once open land or wilderness.

Researchers like Caroline Krumm of the Rocky Mountain Cat Conservancy and mountain lion biologist Mary Jean Currier are only now revealing some of these majestic animals' secrets. Both women recently discussed their work with volunteers in the Fort Collins Master Naturalist program.

Currier, a professional biologist as well as a volunteer master naturalist, discussed basic lion behavior and biology. She raised three male cubs to adulthood and could testify with much personal experience.

We heard the bird-like squeaks of young kittens and the rumble of adults who can purr with both the intake and exhalation of breath. (The sound of purring, by the way, seems to be able to accelerate bone healing, even in humans.)

We learned that the jaw "chattering" you may have seen in your own cat when it looks at birds near the feeder allows adult lions to scissor their jaws through flesh in a way that minimizes breaking their teeth on their victim's bones.

Likewise the "silly face" quasi smile a cat makes (called a flehmen reaction) allows them to smell and taste more effectively with their Jacobson's organ, located in the mouth just behind the teeth. Mountain lions also share the sandpaper tongue of domestic cats, filled with abrasive papillae handy for rasping meat off bones. But unlike the slitted pupils of domestic cats that outfit tabbies for night hunting, mountain lions possess round pupils adapted to maximize efficiency for hunting near dawn and dusk.

Lions are effective ambush hunters. Their tawny hide with black-tipped ears and long tail blends in well with sandy soil and typical foothills brush like mountain mahogany and skunkbush -which is one reason even experienced hikers may be watched without their knowledge. Hikers walk safest when in a group.

Individuals should never jog in lion country, especially at dusk and dawn. Running stimulates an attack response in lions, even if they aren't particularly hungry. Never let an easy lunch get away, might be their motto. But lions are conservative predators and don't want to get hurt by cranky prey, which is why lions can be discouraged by yelling, by looking large when waving arms and flashing an open jacket, and by throwing rocks and anything else that's handy.

Krumm noted that people informed that a lion is nearby often react with shock and want them removed. Mountain lions in urban areas do often get relocated, but she argues that mountain lions are an essential part of local ecology. They are virtually the only check on deer and elk populations, for example, except in those places where wolves have been re-introduced. And they preferentially remove animals sick with chronic wasting disease.

Krumm, in fact, entered the fascinating field of mountain lion behavior after working on a CWD study as part of a master's thesis in conjunction with the Division of Wildlife. Her master's study morphed into an ongoing long-term project. Because mountain lions are relatively long-lived, dangerous, elusive, wide ranging (individuals can and do roam for hundreds of miles), and present management issues, few researchers have devoted themselves to similar studies. Krumm partnered with Don Hunter, formerly with the U.S. Geological Survey, to work with lions in and around Rocky Mountain National Park. Their work is the first such study done there.

Because government funding can be patchy and sporadic, Krumm opted to head a nonprofit organization called the Rocky Mountain Cat Conservancy (www.catconservancy.org). In addition to continuing her basic research trailing radio-collared cats and observing kill sites, behavior and such, Krumm is concentrating on educational efforts. She's enlisting elementary and high school students to work in the field collecting data on prey species, assisting in recording animal tracks and other sign, and helping researchers set "camera traps" while learning about radio telemetry, GPS and other research tools.

Her hope is that educational outreach is the key that will allow humans and big cats to share the bounty that is Colorado's beautiful--and at least partially wild--outdoor heritage.