Nature Boost Podcast
Episode 53
Mountain Lions
[Music playing.]
>> Hey there and welcome back to another episode of Nature Boost. I'm Jill Pritchard with the Missouri Department of Conservation. Missouri is home to some big wildlife, this we know! We've got black bears, elk, and even some of our white-tailed deer can get pretty big. But one species is occasionally popping up on game cameras and even making headlines in recent years. I'm talking about the mountain lion.
At the time of this recording, there have been 120 confirmed mountain lion reports in the state since 1994. 15 sightings were confirmed in 2023. To learn more about mountain lions, their history in the state of Missouri, and some more about these confirmed reports, I sat down MDC wildlife management coordinator, Alan Leary.
[Music playing.]
Alright, Alan Leary, thank you so much for sitting down with me today. I have been wanting to talk about mountain lions for a really long time on this podcast. So I am really excited to be discussing this with you and just kind of talking about mountain lion history in Missouri.
First off, we did have an established population in Missouri at one point in the past, correct?
>> Yes, we did. They were found throughout the entire state up until the early 1900s. Then when the early settlers moved here, they over-harvested them because they thought they were competing with them for game they wanted to eat and also killing their livestock. Then just the early settlers cleared a lot of the habitat that the mountain lions wanted to use. They were extirpated by the state by 1927. The last known one in this state was killed in the Bootheel in 1927. Then we didn't see one in the state again until 1994.
[2:07.]
>> Gosh, a long time!
>> Yeah.
>> A long long time. They were a part of Missouri's natural history at one point.
>> Yes. They are native to this state.
>> Okay, interesting. And you said their habitat. What kind of habitat do they require? I am curious.
>> They are pretty adaptable. They can live just about anywhere they can find food and shelter. People think of them as mountainous. They are out in areas like Colorado and places like that with you know rocky mountain-type areas. But they are found in prairies, and found in forested lands, and found in deserts. They are pretty adaptable. As long as they can find food and somewhere to get out of the elements they can adapt to it.
>> Interesting. Okay. Mountain lions, they go by a few different names, right?
>> Yes. Pumas, catamounts, panthers. It seems like there are even a couple more. Those are the main ones. A painter. Painter is one I have heard. Not often. It is not used around here a lot. That is one I have also seen associated with them.
>> I haven't heard painter. I think of, you know, Bob Ross with that.
[Laughing.]
>> Yeah. Even Catamount seems kind of odd
>> I was going to say Catamount. What is the history of that? I have never heard of that one.
>> I'm not sure. I think it is another one that was used long ago but not commonly anymore. At least not here in the midwest.
>> Yeah, okay. Mountain lions, pumas, and big cats for sure.
>> Panthers.
>> Panthers, yeah, okay. So, we don't have an established population in Missouri. But we have them in nearby states, correct?
>> That's correct. As close as Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming. Occasionally we are able to get DNA from one that comes through Missouri whether it be hit by an automobile or whatever. A lot of the ones we have gotten DNA from they traced back to the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming. Yeah. They are probably young cats that have been out looking for their territory. It is time to disperse and find their territory so they are out looking for their own territory and a mate.
[4:15.]
I think they come through Missouri and look. They just probably find a suitable habitat, maybe, and not a mate. We still to this point have not confirmed a female with kittens. We have no evidence of a breeding population at this time.
>> Traveling through Missouri from those midwest areas, the upper states like that is a long way to travel.
>> Yes, but there have been a few instances where they have had a collar on a mountain lion that has been hit by an automobile or something. One, I can't remember the exact distances. There was one that was hit in Red Rock, Oklahoma that had been collared in North Dakota. It had went 887 miles, seems to ring a bell in my head. There was another one that came from South Dakota/Wyoming area that got hit out in Connecticut. It had went over 1000 miles. It is uncommon, but they are very capable of traveling long distances. They are very secretive animals. They are not seen a lot.
>> Right. It is hard to know where they have been and where they are going.
>> Yeah. Not a lot of them have collars or ear tags or any sort of marking on them for anybody to know that this one came from here or to be able to follow its tracks. I don't know if you remember, a few years ago, there was a large bear that went through Missouri. People had been following it from Wisconsin. That bear had several hundred thousand Facebook followers. The mountain lions are much more secretive or seclusive or whatever. We just don't see them that often.
>> Yes, very elusive.
Let's talk more about that. I want to get into the characteristics of mountain lions. They're big.
>> They're big, yeah.
>> Are they the biggest cat species in North America? Up there for sure.
>> For sure in the United States. In North America, yeah, I would think so.
>> Exactly how big can they get?
>> The average male probably averages 120-150 pounds. The females are a third of that size. Maybe an average of 80-100 or 90-110 pounds. Something like that.
>> Man, they are big.
>> Yeah, and then males . . . length, with the tail included can get up to 8 ft and a female up to 7 ft. That is a large animal. It's pretty obvious. If you see one, that is a mountain lion. There is not much question there. The tail is so distinct. That big long tail that has a curve to it.
>> It kind of swoops up. It is a U shape.
[6:53.]
>> Then it has the dark tip on it.
>> It always has a dark tip on it?
>> Yeah.
>> Their heads are a little smaller in relation to the size of their body, the shape of it maybe?
>> Yes. Stocky. The male is a bit stockier than the female, and yeah, then they have that nice tan color. They are beautiful animals. The feet are just huge.
>> Monster paws.
>> As big as my hand. We had the opportunity to go up to South Dakota and work with some of their staff on mountain lions up there. They had some that had been hit by cars or whatever. We were able to look at them. Wow.
>> Yeah. I have seen pictures. Yeah. It's shocking a little.
About how long do they live?
>> In the wild, 8-12 years is probably a lifespan. A lot of them probably don't make it that long. Living in the wild is pretty harsh. They don't really have any natural predators. But still, just being a wild animal with weather conditions and finding food. If they get an injury and can't hunt for themselves. They are solitary animals for the most part.
>> Usually alone.
>> They don't have someone to take care of them. If they get injured, break a leg or whatever, one will rarely take on a healthy full-grown cow or elk or something like that. There is such a high risk for them if they do that. They are going to generally search for wounded, sick, young. Something that will be a little bit easier.
>> Vulnerable. Such as what? What are they taking down for food?
[8:30.]
>> Primarily deer. Around here, it would be deer. They also feed on a lot of medium sized animals like racoons. They can eat a porcupine with quills on it and somehow it doesn't harm them. They will eat rabbits.
>> If they weren't scary enough already, they can eat porcupines, everybody. Geez.
>> Yeah. We have had a couple here that were hit by cars and we necropsied them. Primarily it was raccoons and smaller things that we found in them. That could have been because they were on the move, or they were younger animals and hadn't really learned to hunt deer yet. It is hard to say. They will feed on smaller animals. They can attack livestock. It is not real common. If they see prey, food, out there they will go after it. We have never confirmed or documented an attack on livestock in Missouri. It does happen in other states. It is not super common but it does happen. We have not had it occur here that we are aware of.
>> Would you say that they are opportunistic in their prey?
>> Yes. I would say so.
>> Whatever is available.
>> Definitely. I am sure it varies throughout their range.
>> Sure.
>> If they are in an area where they don't have many deer but there is abundant rabbits and racons, that is what they will eat.
>> That is what is for dinner.
So talking about their appearance, like you say, this is a very large animal. Do we find in Missouri that it gets confused a lot with bobcats? We have bobcats in Missouri, correct?
>> Yes.
>> Do they get confused with the reports?
>> Yes, we get a lot of photographs and stuff that people are asking what is this or thinking it might be and a lot of times it does end up being a bobcat. If you can't see the tail or if it's . . . most of the photographs we get are from trail cameras. It is dark and kind of blurry. No one is there focusing it in.
>> It is blurry. You have insects flying around.
>> It is at dusk or dawn. A lot of them do turn out most of the time to be bobcats. The major difference is the size of the tail and the size if they are adults. Sometimes people think this may be a younger mountain lion, and therefore the smaller size.
>> Briefly. Bobcats are smaller and have the bobbed tail.
>> Yes. A bobcat can have an 8-10 inch tail but it is not very long and it doesn't have the curve to it like the mountain lion. That is pretty distinct.
>> That is a very good distinction there.
>> Another thing that we do get a lot. We get a lot of photographs sent in. They will see a large track in the dirt, mud or snow or whatever. They think it must be a mountain lion because it is so large. But we also do have a lot of very large dogs. You know, there is a lot of breeds of dogs that can get up to easily 80 pounds. My relatives have an 130-pound dog.
>> What dog is 130 pounds?
>> They don't know. It just showed up at their house.
[Laughing.]
>> It just showed up they are like, "I guess it lives here now, we are too scared of it to say it can't." It's 130 pound dog. We will do whatever you want. Gosh. Wow.
>> We do have some cat walks with its claws retracted. If there are claws retracted, we know it was canine or a coyote or a dog and not a mountain lion.
Also there are some different characteristics about the heel pad.
>> The big pad in the middle.
>> Yes, a canine looks different than a mountain lion. So, we can use characteristics from that as well to identify a track when people send those into us.
>> I am really glad you said that about the claws. If you do see the claws, it is more likely a dog or a coyote. Okay. Alright. Good to know.
[12:24.]
Let's get into sightings in Missouri. Again, 2023 mountain lions seemed to be in the news a lot. In January of that year, 2023, there was one that was hit by a vehicle kind of around the St. Louis area, Franklin county. Then later on in that year, in September, there was one that killed an adult elk in Shannon County. Those were just incredible pictures of both the one that was hit by a vehicle. It was in the middle of the road and of course it stopped traffic. You see the other one taking down that elk. MDC has a whole list of confirmed sightings since the first one in 1994.
I went on there before we sat down. There was 15 total confirmed sightings in 2023. Is that a lot?
>> Yeah, it varies. It goes up and down by the year. I'm not sure why. I'm not sure the explanation. It may be because they had a good year in South Dakota so there are more young ones in South Dakota dispersing and looking for a home. It also could be in part that some of those might be the same animal. We can't tell. We don't know if the same animal stuck around for a little while. For example, in 2023, I think it was when we had three confirmations within about 5 weeks in Dallas County. They were in a similar area. There is a chance those three were the same animal. But we put them on the website as three separate because we don't know.
>> Sightings, confirmed reports.
>> Yes, exactly.
[14:07.]
We had 15 total reports in 2023 but that doesn't mean it was 15 different mountain lions.
>> Yes. Even the one that was hit over by St. Louis area by the vehicle you mentioned. Prior to that there was a confirmation in Boone County and then soon after that, Calloway County, and then Montgomery County, and then that one in Franklin County. That is a direct line. It could have been the same animal but again, we don't know. Again, that is four separate sightings on the website. That is just how we report it.
I said it is cyclical. If you go back to 2020, we only had two confirmations. Then in 2021, we had 14 or 15. Then in 2022, it was down to six. Then like you mentioned, last year it was 15.
>> It goes up and down. There is no rhyme or reason to any of it.
>> We probably see an increase in the fall a little bit when a lot of people have their trail cameras out since it is getting to be hunting season.
>> Oh sure.
>> You might have more eyes out in the woods to catch those things than the middle of the summer when not a lot of people have those cameras out.
>> Is there a specific location in Missouri where we see to get a lot of sightings or is it just all over the place?
>> We definitely have them all over the state. We have a map on the website with the locations. You will see it is pretty much spread all over the state. If there were an area where maybe there were a few more, probably be down in the Shannon/Carter/Reynolds county area.
>> Ozarks region.
>> That is an area where we do have some big forests. These are seclusive animals that don't want to be around people. Down in that area we have a lot of Mark Twain National Forest down there. That is the area where the elk were reintroduced. There is another potential prey source for them. It doesn't jump out at you when you look at that map like all the dots are concentrated. Not at all. You may notice that there may be a little more activity there but it is not really distinct or really obvious.
[16:17.]
>> And again, this is documented since 1994. You know. You look at that and you are like "oh my gosh, look at all these reports!" you'd think they all just happened last week. But this has been 20 years now. Yeah. Well, more than 20 years.
>> 30 years.
>> That's insane.
>> It's 120 confirmed sightings since 1994. So that is not that many every year.
Again, it goes up and down dramatically. We receive a lot more calls. We receive a couple hundred reports every year but we can't confirm it without physical evidence. If someone calls and says, "I saw one run through the yard last night," if there is no track there is no way for us to confirm it. We need to have a track or a photograph, or maybe some hair. Some sort of physical evidence we can go out and confirm that it was one. We don't want to put it on the website every time someone calls. It would look like what you were saying like, "Oh my gosh!"
>> These are instances where you are going out and finding that evidence. Yes, absolutely a mountain lion has been here.
>> Yes.
>> So if someone does think they've seen a mountain lion, what do they do?
>> Well, if they go to our website and search for "mountain lion" there will be a link to mountain lion sightings. On there, there is an email address, I think it is mountain.lion@mdc.mo.gov. They can send it in to that. Or my name and contact information is on there and they can call or email me and we will get it recorded. If there is physical evidence, we have our large carnivore response team. Someone from that team will probably come out and visit the people and look at the location. If it was a trail camera photograph we try and see where was the camera, where was the animal, to make sure. A lot of time depth perception with trail cameras a lot of the time bobcats get mistaken for mountain lions because the animal was close to the camera so it looks huge.
[18:21.]
But really it wasn't that huge. It was just their depth perception was off. We have cardboard silhouettes, one the size of a mountain lion, one the size of a bobcat, and one the size of a house cat. We can have the camera where it was when they took the photograph and put the silhouette where the animal was and we can then see was that animal was big enough. Was it actually a mountain lion? Or was it a bobcat?
>> I remember a few years ago, there was a report of a mountain lion in Jefferson City near Menards. We had so many people on our social media pages just convinced that it was a mountain lion. They had pictures. I know you are smiling. You remember this. This was such a big thing on our Facebook page. You went up there because we were getting calls, the media was on to this, and people were just convinced. You went up there with those silhouettes. It was a house cat. Yeah. But I know that that is very common. People think that they see a mountain lion. They took a picture or a video. Again, it is the depth perception. I am sure the majority of it is just house cats.
>> Yeah. A lot of times, you know, people don't think to compare. You might be able to look behind the animal and there is a tree behind the animal and the animal is not even as wide as the trunk of the tree. Well, that animal is not even 16 inches long or something like that. I have seen photographs of a cat. You look behind it, and it is not as tall as the bottom of a barb-wired fence. For some reason the person's depth perception was off a little bit. They thought it looked bigger. They didn't even realize that it is in front of a fence and not that large. That's okay! We have the team to look at photographs at that. We have the opportunity to see lots and lots of them. We have different things we will look for. Sometimes I don't catch it either and someone else on the team will. That is why we have different people, there is not just one of us, there is a whole team.
[20:29.]
>> Oh for sure.
Well, and I think a part of that too is that there is an element of excitement with that. Oh my gosh! I caught a mountain lion on camera! It was in my back yard or it was in my woods. People get excited because this is such a solitary animal. It is elusive. You know it is a big animal. It is exciting when you think you see something you normally don't get to see. That could be a reason why just like that. It is a house cat. No, that is a mountain lion for sure. I think there is an element to that.
>> Well, you think of people that are birdwatchers. They like to birdwatch. If there is a rare bird in the state of Missouri, people will drive four hours to see this rare bird. I remember a few years ago I spotted a roadrunner at the Mariosa boat landing out here. I told somebody. It went one of the e-bird websites and people were driving from St. Louis to come over. Driving 2.5 hours or whatever to come and see that roadrunner. People get excited about seeing something rare. A mountain lion in Missouri is still rare. Only 120 of them since 1994. It is a very rare occurrence. It is exciting. I know I own some lands and I have trail cameras. I get excited every time I pull the SD cards out of them. I can't wait to see whether it is a big deer, a bear, or maybe even a mountain lion. Who knows what will be on there.
>> Yeah, it's Christmas morning unwrapping the trail camera here.
Alan, let's get into some mountain lion true or false stuff here. It is such a big animal there is a lot of rumors and misinformation that can be spread about mountain lions. Will mountain lions attack people?
>> It can happen, it has happened, not in Missouri. It is extremely rare. Throughout the entire United States, including areas where they are very common, it is extremely rare. The average since 1980 is one fatal attack every 7 years for the whole United States
>> Wow.
>> . That is one fatal attack every seven years. Every year there is a 50,000 people killed in automobile accidents. There is 86 people killed by lightning strikes in the United States every year. There is 80 people killed by dogs on average every year. There is only one by a mountain lion every 7 years.
>> Every 7 years it in the whole country.
>> It is very rare. Yes, in the whole country
[22:52.]
There is an area in California where they have a population right in Los Angeles. They have some mountains in Los Angeles and people are hiking on trails and stuff within yards of them all the time. We are not on their menu. For the most part, they are more scared of us than we are of them.
>> They just want to be left alone.
>> Yes, they want to get out of the way. That is a large part of why we don't see them that often. They detect us before we detect them.
>> I'm glad you pointed that out. If you happen to be near one, they know where you are way before you are even aware that they are near you. Good to know.
Will mountain lions eat my pets?
>> Again, it can happen. It is very rare. We have not confirmed or documented an attack on livestock or domestic pets. For sure not livestock. I can't recall any for pets either. It could happen. But again it's going to be rare. Especially if your pet is near your house. Mountain lions don't want to be near people. Now if you've got a small dog and it is roaming out in the back 40 and it is roaming out there, to a mountain lion a little dog might look like a raccoon or porcupine or a rabbit and it may take it. But if it is up by the house in a fenced yard, it is unlikely a mountain lion would come in the yard and take it.
[24:18.]
>> Alright. Can they climb trees?
>> Absolutely. They are very good climbers.
>> Are they?
>> Yes. I don't know if you have seen a video or anything but when they hunt them, they use dogs and they run up a tree.
>> Oh they do? They tree them. Interesting.
>> Yes, they are very good climbers. We do occasionally get a report here in Missouri that someone found a deer in a tree and they think it is a mountain lion that took it up there. That is not the case. They do not do that. Large cats out in Africa do that because they have to get it away from the other animals that will steal it from them. But the mountain lions have no one stealing it from them here in Missouri. That is not a trait that they do. If there is a deer in a tree, it was probably from flood waters or somebody just did it as a prank or something. It was most likely not a mountain lion that did it.
>> I would feel like that would be really difficult to drag a deer up a tree.
>> That would be a handful, for sure.
>> Hunting season, as you mentioned, do people eat . . . can you eat mountain lion?
>> Yeah.
>> You can? I was not aware of that.
>> You don't hear about it real often. They may do it more for the fur. For the pelts. But they definitely, like I mentioned we were out in South Dakota not long ago. They believe their population is maybe about 200 animals in the Black Hills region. They have a season and I think they allow a quota of 40 per year.
>> That is the limit. Okay, I see.
MDC introduced mountain lions to Missouri.
>> Absolutely not.
>> That is one we get a lot on social media.
>> It is a rumor that has been around for a long time. I always kind of smile when I hear the rumor that we dropped them from helicopters. I try to think about who the poor individual was who rode in the back with the mountain lions. I'm like, man, a really bad performance appraisal. You are the one going up next week.
>> Guess what you get to do!
>> Yes, that absolutely did not happen and we have no plans to reintroduce them. That's not something that we have ever done or planned to do.
>> Alright. I can shoot a mountain lion if I see one.
>> You can only shoot one under the wildlife code allows the general provision that allows you to protect yourself and your property from most animals. But there is an exception with mountain lions, bears, and a few other things. Mountain lions, you can if they are attacking or killing livestock or domestic animals or if they are threatening human safety. You are allowed to then. You can't just because one walked through your yard or whatever. You can't shoot it.
[26:58.]
If it is attacking or killing your livestock, or pets, or if it is threatening your safety then you can.
>> Okay. Alright. Black Panthers are in Missouri.
>> That is another myth. There is no such thing as a black panther. There has never been one confirmed anywhere in the range of the species. They do not occur in a melanistic color like that. There is two types of large cats that can have a black coat or melanistic coloration and those are leopards and jaguars. They are not native to the United States. We do get a lot of reports of black panthers. I never say that it couldn't be a large black cat because some people have permits to hold a jaguar or leopard and have them at their home. Or one could have escaped from a zoo. It is unlikely, but it could happen. It also could be a large black cat. Again, you know, depth perception. Again, there has never been a black panther recorded anywhere within the range of the species.
>> But I have a picture of it, Alan.
[Laughing.]
On my uncle's buddy's girlfriend's backyard. It was there.
>> It was there for sure.
>> Alright. I would like to talk about, again, the main point, they are so uncommon in Missouri. They used to be here. They were extirpated from the state. They are traveling through. We do get sightings, we do get confirmed reports as we have discussed. If you are in the woods or you are enjoying time outdoors hiking, and hunting, and you do encounter a mountain lion. What do I do? Is there a certain behavior you should be looking for that would indicate that you are in danger?
>> The first thing I would say is don't try and get close and get a selfie. That is always a bad idea.
[28:45.]
For the most part, the mountain lion will want to get away from you. If you somehow cornered it or maybe it is an injured animal, and so it is going to be acting a little different. Then you want to make yourself look big, hold your arms up, make noises, tell it to go away. Don't ever turn your back. Don't ever turn your back and run from them.
>> Okay, why?
>> That elicits their attack instinct. It makes them want to attack. I think that is the case for most animals. It is the same for a bear. You don't ever want to turn and run. I think you would see that with your own dog. If you are playing with your dog and you turn and run, the dog will run after you.
>> True. Yeah.
>> You don't want to turn and run. Even in some countries like Africa or whatever, some of the tribes will wear a mask that looks like eyes on the back of their head so it looks like they are always looking no matter which direction they are facing. You want to maintain eye contact with that animal. Look big. If it does come at you, you want to fight back. With some animals, they say play dead and it will go away. With a mountain lion, you want to fight back. But before that, if you can find a stick or some rocks or something to throw in its direction.
>> Throw something at it and that should scare it away.
>> Yes, hopefully it knows this thing will fight back. Maybe I will go find something else. They will not take a big healthy animal because it is a high risk to them. If they get injured, they may not survive in the wild. They don't want to fight something that is going to fight back hard against them.
[30:16.]
>> The odds of this happening, again, in Missouri are more rare because we do not have an established population. The main thing to remember is that like you say, they are more afraid of us than we are of them. They have likely already sensed our coming that we are nearby and they don't want to be near us.
>> They are a wild animal. They have to have good senses and be alert of the things around them. They don't have a lot of natural predators obviously, but they are still, animals in the wild are more alert. I can lay down at night and go to sleep without a lot to worry about. I am not worried about something coming up and attacking me in the middle of the night. But animals always have to be alert, they have keen senses. They are always alert and looking for prey. They are always aware of their surroundings.
>> They are nocturnal, correct?
>> They can be seen hunting day or night. Like a lot of animals, dusk and dawn will be their most active time.
>> Okay.
>> That may be because that is when deer are most active and when the animals they are eating are most active, so that is when they are most active.
>> Okay. Okay. I was just curious. Is there any chance that they could come back to Missouri and become a part of our ecosystem, our landscape again?
>> Yeah, I think it is possible that at some point a male and female will find each other in Missouri. Down in the Ozarks, there is habitat that would be very suitable. We have deer, we have elk, we have raccoons, and rabbits. There is food there. There is certainly caves and forested areas and rocky areas. The habitat is here for them. I think that would be suitable. We know from the past they used to live here. They found it suitable then. Things have changed since then, obviously, we don't have the same habitats. But the forested hills of the Ozarks are probably getting back after a lot of trees were cleared. A lot of it is growing back and the habitat is looking more like it used to.
[32:18.]
>> The confirmed reports in Missouri . . . have all of those been males?
>> No, we have had three females. We had the first in 1994 was a female. That was an animal that was actually killed by coon hunters. Some hunters took that animal. That was a female. In 2016, there was an elk that was at least fed on and probably killed by a mountain lion. We were able to get DNA from the elk carcass and it came back to be female. The one in 2023 that we talked about before was female as well.
>> The one that killed the elk? That was a female? Oh I was not aware. Do females travel as far as males?
>> No, they tend to have smaller home ranges than the males. The males home range my overlap with several females, but the males won't overlap with each other.
>> Alright. What are your final thoughts on mountain lions in Missouri? Anything else you would like to add? What do you want people to know about? The main takeaways?
>> I think the main takeaway is that MDC is very interested in the mountain lions and how often they are seen in Missouri. Keeping track if we do start to see more and more or males and females. We encourage people to report them when they see them if they have evidence. We talked before that. Often times the reports we get turn out to be a misidentification. But I don't want that to discourage people from sending in their photos because if they think it was, then it is worth us looking at it and trying to determine for sure. It could be. If somebody thinks it may have been, go ahead and send in the report.
We have a database. The confirmed ones go on our website. We also have a database of the other reports so we know. A lot of the ones that people call in and didn't get a photo of still could be a mountain lion, we just didn't have a way to confirm it. A lot of people can certainly identify a mountain lion. It is a distinct animal. They may have seen it and didn't have a camera handy or didn't think of it. You see something like that and then it walks away and you are like, "Wow, why didn't I get a picture of it? I had my phone right here!"
[34:42.]
We keep track of those reports as well even though we can't confirm it. We encourage people to send in reports when they see them.
>> You can go back and look. Oh, this was a confirmed report. Oh there was a guy nearby a few weeks ago that thought he may have seen one. That is good to know.
>> And you know, if we get a cluster of them at one time, we can put a trail camera out if we can get some evidence. Again, another thing we didn't mention is that they do have very large home ranges. Often times, people will say they have seen this same mountain lion on their farm every day or week for the last two months. It is not likely that that happened because they cover so much ground. If they killed a large animal like an elk or something, they would feed on it today and cache it. They will take it into the woods and put grass over top of it or something and can come back tomorrow and feed on it. They may do that for a couple days. They may hang around a certain area for a couple days. But they won't stay in the same area for weeks. They have a very large home range.
That isn't on their sign that there may be one around. If there is a carcass of a deer or elk and it is covered with grass or something, that is very characteristic of a mountain lion.
>> You would encourage to report that even if you haven't seen one.
>> Yes, send a photograph of that, definitely
>> Alrgh to lot spatial frequency great information that you shared with me today. This is an exciting topic. It is like bears and elk. These are big animals. People get excited about big animals. Bears are elusive too. They are popping up more on the landscape. We have a hunting season for them. Mountain lions, especially, have always had myths surrounding them and it is easy to believe stuff you see on social media or you hear from a coworker. But we have a great database of information on the MDC website page. I would encourage everybody to go on there and learn about them. They are a pretty cool animal.
>> They are a very interesting animal.
>> Alan, I appreciate you sitting down with me and clear something stuff up. I really enjoyed our discussion today.
>> Yeah, it was great.
[Music playing.]
>> If you want to learn more about mountain lions, or would like to report a sighting; go to our website at MDCconservation.org and search for mountain lion. Thanks to MDC wildlife management coordinator Alan Leary for sitting down with me today. Thank you for listening to another episode of Nature Boost
I am Jill Pritchard with the MDC and I am encouraging you to get your daily dose of the outdoors.
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