SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

Browse our collection of recent scientific papers on puma biology and ecology, with an emphasis on impacts and effects at the human-puma interface. Papers are presented unedited in their original form.

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Coexisting with Cougars: Public Perceptions, Attitudes and
Awareness of Cougars on the Urban-Rural Fringe of Calgary, Canada
Clarisse Thornton and Michael S. Quinn, Internet Center for Human–Wildlife Interactions, University of Nebraska, 2009
ABSTRACT: Interactions between humans and cougars have been steadily increasing over the past 20 years largely due to human encroachment into cougar habitat and an increase in the human population. We determined the attitudes, knowledge, and perceptions toward cougars by residents in the urban-rural fringe of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. We found an overall positive attitude toward the presence of cougars in the area. However, residents indicated a low level of knowledge concerning regional wildlife management and wished to be more directly involved. Recommendations included: increasing the awareness of cougars through targeted education, facilitating of stakeholder involvement, developing of proactive cougar management strategies, and exploring adaptive management. [more...]

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Long-Distance Dispersal of a Male Puma in Patagonia
Mark Elbroch, Heiko Wittmer, Cristian Saucedo and Paulo Corti; Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology, UC Davis; Conservación Patagónica, Chile; Instituto de Zoología, Universidad Austral de Chile; 2009
ABSTRACT: Pumas have the largest geographic range of any terrestrial mammal in the Americas. Despite this large distribution, pumas are a species of conservation concern and believed in decline across much of their range. Research in North America suggests that dispersal is critical in maintaining connectivity of increasingly fragmented puma populations. Puma dispersal maintains genetic diversity across the landscape and is essential in revitalizing small populations and recolonizing habitats in which local populations have become extinct (i.e., source-sink dynamics). Long distance dispersals by pumas across large tracts of unsuitable habitat have been well recorded in North America. Here we report on a long-distance dispersal event of a male Patagonian puma in South America as revealed by satellite and GPS telemetry. [more...]

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Impacts of Rural Development on Puma Ecology in the Sierra Nevada
Anne Orlando, Ph.D. Dissertation in Ecology at UC Davis, 2008
ABSTRACT: In Western North America, many rural areas are being converted to ranchette style residential development, potentially degrading habitat for large carnivores including pumas, and impacting ecosystem integrity. In a rapidly developing rural region of the Sierra Nevada, I studied the impacts of low-density development on puma habitat utility, behavioral ecology, mortality, and viability. I characterized properties experiencing puma depredation, a major cause of puma mortality in the study region, and compared attributes of properties that had, and had not, experienced depredation. [more...]

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Trophic Cascades Involving Cougar, Mule Deer and Black Oaks in Yosemite National Park
William J. Ripple and Robert L. Beschta, College of Forestry, Oregon State University, 2008
ABSTRACT: Using a historical reconstruction, we discovered a potential trophic cascade involving cougar, mule deer and California black oak in Yosemite National Park in California. Our objective was to determine whether large deer populations in the absence of a top-level carnivore were suppressing tree regeneration. As human visitation increased in the early 1900s and cougar became increasingly scarce, the mule deer population irrupted in the 1920s. In August 2006, we undertook a retrospective study of black oak recruitment (i.e., growth of seedling/sprouts into tall saplings and trees). We similarly inventoried oaks within sites representing refugia from deer browsing. While significantly diminished oak recruitment has occurred since the 1920s in stands accessible to deer, continuous recruitment of oaks was found in refugia sites. We also found less oak recruitment in areas of high human activity near the park’s visitor center, possibly due to behaviorally-mediated effects of lower cougar and higher deer densities. Overall our results are consistent with trophic cascade theory involving large predators, herbivores, and plants. The long-term lack of oak recruitment is also an indicator of a probable loss of biodiversity. [more...]

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Linking a Cougar Decline, Trophic Cascade and Catastrophic Regime Shift in Zion National Park
William J. Ripple and Robert L. Beschta, College of Forestry, Oregon State University, 2006
ABSTRACT: The strength of top-down forces in terrestrial food webs is highly debated as there are few examples illustrating the role of large mammalian carnivores in structuring biotic and abiotic systems. Based on the results of this study we hypothesize that an increase in human visitation within Zion Canyon of Zion National Park ultimately resulted in a catastrophic regime shift through pathways involving trophic cascades and abiotic environmental changes. Increases in human visitors in Zion Canyon apparently reduced cougar densities, which subsequently led to higher mule deer densities, higher browsing intensities and reduced recruitment of riparian cottonwood trees, increased bank erosion, and reductions in both terrestrial and aquatic species abundance. These results may have broad implications with regard to our understanding of alternative ecosystem states where large carnivores have been removed or are being recovered. [more...]