Puma Safety

Puma Safety Tips courtesy of my 8th grade Science classes

Beware of the Mountain Lions

We have had two different Mt. Lion warnings on the UCSC campus in the last couple of weeks.  When I got the text message for the second warning last week I decided to walk out to the area of the sighting and see if I could see myself a cat.  Alas, I was not attacked nor did I see a Mt. Lion. For that matter I could not even find any sign of Mt. Lions. No footprints, no scat.  I did not really expect to find much, but was still a bit disappointed. I have been busy finishing the last few experiments and getting figures and a manuscript ready for publication so I have not gotten outside much at all in January.  Hopefully February will be better and you will be seeing more frequent posts on CTC again.

I will have to just leave you with a couple of Mt. Lion footprints from 2011.

The first I found in the Yuba Gap placing cams ahead of the Codger's workshop.




The second was found a few days later at the Chimineas Ranch while exploring a canyon with Randomtruth.




Lastly an out of focus image of Mt. Lion scat. I can now proudly make bets in a bar that I could distinguish Mt. Lion poop from the other large American carnivores with my eyes closed and my nosed turned up. Just leave out the Southern 40 Miles of Arizona and New Mexico, Jaguars, Ocelots and Jaguarundis; my scent palate is not that refined yet.




On another note, what is the currently excepted binomial nomenclature for the mountain lion?  I see it as both Panthera concolor and Puma concolor in fairly recent guides and sources.

Link dump

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I have a thesis committee meeting on Thursday.  Don't think only undergrads cram for exams, us grad-students do it in our own way too.  It is a race to finish three weeks of experiments in the one week before your committee meeting.  You know your committee is going to ask you to do said experiments so having some preliminary results to tell them about somehow makes you feel better.

Oh well ... on to matters pertinent to the blog.  The San Fransisco coyote invasion continues and Animal Control is trying to educate residents in order to minimize interactions.

I was also going to post about the California family who had their dinner party crashed by a dead Mountain Lion under their deck but the Codger beat me too it.

About a month ago there was a Mountain Lion shot in Redwood City in Randomtruth's neck of the woods.

Finally, I know I promised some book reviews many blog years ago, but I have tried to sit down and write them a couple of times and realized that I am horrible at writing book reviews.  I will give it one more try next week, but it may end up just being a list of books I have read recently and liked.  I don't have a future writing for the Old Gray Lady that is for sure.

UPDATE: A Mountain Lion was seen today in San Mateo County.  Plus a cool map of Mt. Lion sightings in San Mateo County in 2011.

UPDATE II: Via Bay Laurel Mountain Lion sightings in Marin County.  This is in the same neighborhood as three previous sightings.