NEWSLINK: Studying Sonoma’s big cats

"We know the cats are out there,” said Dr. Quinton Martins, principal investigator of Audubon Canyon Ranch’s Mountain Lion Project. “We don’t know how many there are, whether the population is healthy, or how they are moving through the landscape.”

Read more...

NEWSLINK: Milwaukee Zoo recording big cats for study on tiger lingo

Strannik — all 422 pounds of him — laid his ears back and chuffed as breakfast in the form of ground beef mixed with vitamins was passed through the bars of his cage.
Earlier, he had growled at the Milwaukee County Zoo's other tigers. While human zookeepers could only guess, his furry striped compatriots knew exactly what he was saying.

Read more...

NEWSLINK: Mayacamas mountain lion population subject of first-of-its-kind study

Cougar, painter, catamount, purple panther; the mountain lion is known by many names. Its mystique is deeply connected to our innate fear of dark shadows and things that rustle unseen in the brush. Although widespread across North America, mountain lions are timid by nature and generally avoid confrontation with humans.

Read more...

ARTICLE: Lions Are Making a Surprising Comeback--but Only When They Are Kept behind Fences

In the summer of 2015 a single dead lion, Cecil, dominated the news. Trophy hunting is not without its complications, but Panthera leo faces even larger problems than wealthy hunters with big guns. 

Classified as threatened, lions suffer from habitat loss, depletion of prey, retaliatory killing for real or perceived losses of human life and livestock, poaching for traditional medicine, and more.

Read more...

ARTICLE: Are We Saying Farewell to America’s Mountain Lion? Five Worst States For the Cougar

When Cecil, the black-maned lion, was killed last year by an American big-game hunter in Zimbabwe, it sparked international outrage and left us all questioning the practice of trophy hunting. 

If anything good came out of his tragic death, however, it was awareness.

Read more...

VIDEO: Huge mountain lion freed from bobcat trap in Utah

A Utah conservation officer posted video of a tense rescue involving a large cougar that became ensnared by a bobcat trap.


The video posted to YouTube shows Division of Wildlife Resources conservation officer Mark Ekins and a trapper working to free the mountain lion from the bobcat trap in the Pine Valley Mountains on Dec. 17.

Read more...

ARTICLE: Grittily Guarding the Gir's Big Cats

When a forest that is home to 523 lions did not stop Darshana Kagda think twice from saying yes to a job as a Forester, you’ve got to wonder what else will! Being headstrong paid off too, as Darshana joined the women’s forest guard team at the Gir Lion Sanctuary.

Read more...