快猫短视频

Cougars in Yellowstone National Park are hunting an increasing proportion of their prey on rugged terrain, a tactic that may be a deliberate choice to reduce the chance that their kills are stolen by the growing number of bears and wolves in the area.

In Yellowstone National Park in the western US, the habitat of cougars (Puma concolor) 鈥� also known as mountain lions 鈥� overlaps with that of grey wolves (Canis lupus), grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis) and American black bears (Ursus americanus). Today, these top predators compete for similar food sources like deer and elk, and often steal fresh kills from each other 鈥� but it wasn鈥檛 this way a century ago.

In the 1920s, cougars and wolves were eradicated from the national park and bears were a rare sight. Cougars have slowly recolonised the area in the last few decades and initially had an abundance of elk to feast on. But grey wolves were reintroduced to the park in the 1990s, adding another elk predator and triggering a cascade of ecological changes.

The number of and black bears in the park has also jumped in recent decades, creating even more competition for elk and similar prey. To see how this was influencing cougars, at the University of Minnesota and his colleagues tracked 13 cougars in the area using GPS collars. Their analysis, , included 381 kills by the cougars 鈥� primarily deer and elk 鈥� from 2016 to 2022.

They found signs that bears had visited around 30 per cent of the cougar kill sites, probably scaring the cats off their kill. Wolves visited cougar kill sites less often, around 8 per cent of the time. 鈥淏ears are definitely much more effective at finding cougar kills,鈥� says Rabe, which might be because there are more bears than wolves in the area.

The researchers could also compare their data with similar tracking data recorded two decades earlier. This showed that cougars are now hunting a greater proportion of their prey on rough landscapes, including rocky slopes and forests. 鈥淐ougars are definitely better hunters where the ambush territory is better,鈥� says Rabe. The cats may be returning to the hunting strategy they relied on before the loss of other predators left an abundance of elk and deer for them to pick off in more open areas.

Rough terrain may also make it easier for cougars to escape less-agile predators like wolves and bears if they need to.

Cougars鈥� shifting hunting tactics are an encouraging sign of the park鈥檚 ecological health and a sign that cougars are figuring out how to live alongside other predators. 鈥淲e鈥檙e getting to the point where things are starting to stabilise,鈥� says Rabe. 鈥淚t鈥檒l be really cool to see if this shift into more rugged terrain continues.鈥�