Big Cat Week
Photo courtesy of Steve Winter/Panthera Bozeman wildlife biologist Howard Quigley, right, and Luke Hunter, president of the nonprofit Panthera, replace a radio collar on a male cougar tranquilized near Jackson Hole, Wyo. The cat is featured in Sunday night's documentary, "American Cougar," which kicks off National Geographic Wild 's weeklong TV documentary series for Big Cat Week.Ê
The world's big cats are in big trouble.The National Geographic Wild television channel will focus on the lives and plights of lions, tigers, jaguars and other large felines next week during its Big Cats Week.
The series kicks off with two documentaries featuring work by Bozeman-based scientist Howard Quigley, one of the top researchers on big cats."They are fascinating," said Quigley, 59, who has spent some 30 years studying cougars, Siberian tigers and jaguars.
Through his research, Quigley has sought both a better scientific understanding of how big cats live and better ways to save them from extinction.
As National Geographic magazine reports in the current issue, big cats face threats from human population growth, poaching, Chinese black markets, habitat destruction, development and ineffective sanctuaries. Tigers, down to a few thousand animals in the wild, have reached a crisis level.
The TV series begins Sunday with "American Cougar," filmed by cinematographer Jeff Hogan over the past year in the Jackson Hole area of Wyoming, where Quigley has been researching the cats.
Cougars are extremely secretive. Quigley said sometimes he can't find them, even when a radio collar signal reveals an animal is nearby.
Thanks to remote, motion-sensor cameras and dogged work, Quigley said, the filmmaker got "wonderful" video of cougars feeding in the wild, hiding their kills, mating, playing with a stick and raising a kitten.
"Viewers will see some aspects of cougars nobody has ever seen before," Quigley said. "In the film we tried to really take people into the lives of cougars."The first time I saw it, I felt it was a tremendous privilege to be allowed into the life and behaviors of wild cougars. They generally avoid people."
Cougars are "super survivors," Quigley said.In the 1930s, cougars were eliminated in most of the United States — poisoned, baited and killed by bounty hunters, much like their fellow predators, wolves. The cats were more successful in avoiding extermination in the Northern Rockies and rugged parts of the West.
Thirty years ago, thanks to Maurice Hornocker's scientific research in Idaho, cougars were reclassified from predators to big game species. Had that not happened, Quigley said, there's a good chance cougars would have been wiped out.
Today cougars are probably the "least endangered of the big cats," Quigley said. Though the Florida panther is endangered, cougars are big game species in most Western states, like Montana. They're hunted, but wildlife managers control the hunt to maintain healthy populations. The exceptions are polar opposites: Texas, where cougars can be shot on sight, and California, where voters outlawed hunting of cougars.
"The cougar is doing quite well and expanding in the Midwest," Quigley said.
A big threat to cougars now may be wolves. Since wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park, there are fewer cougar kittens. From 2004 to 2008, out of the four to six females tracked near Jackson, Wyo., only one litter was produced, Quigley said. It's not yet clear whether wolves directly kill kittens or disrupt cougar females' behavior.
Quigley said he hopes research on cougars will translate into better understanding of big cats in other parts of the world. Now with the nonprofit group Panthera, he directs its program to save jaguars. Monday night, the National Geographic channel will broadcast "Hunt for the Shadow Cat."
Jaguars "are at a critical time," Quigley said. "Development of Latin America is happening at a rapid pace."
Smithsonian magazine reported in its October issue on "The Jaguar Freeway," Panthera's effort to maintain corridors connecting jaguar populations from Mexico to South America, so the cats can interbreed and avoid becoming isolated and vulnerable.
Quigley said he hopes the TV documentaries will produce "an elevated level of appreciation of the ecology and natural history of big cats."
The series kicks off with two documentaries featuring work by Bozeman-based scientist Howard Quigley, one of the top researchers on big cats."They are fascinating," said Quigley, 59, who has spent some 30 years studying cougars, Siberian tigers and jaguars.
Through his research, Quigley has sought both a better scientific understanding of how big cats live and better ways to save them from extinction.
As National Geographic magazine reports in the current issue, big cats face threats from human population growth, poaching, Chinese black markets, habitat destruction, development and ineffective sanctuaries. Tigers, down to a few thousand animals in the wild, have reached a crisis level.
The TV series begins Sunday with "American Cougar," filmed by cinematographer Jeff Hogan over the past year in the Jackson Hole area of Wyoming, where Quigley has been researching the cats.
Cougars are extremely secretive. Quigley said sometimes he can't find them, even when a radio collar signal reveals an animal is nearby.
Thanks to remote, motion-sensor cameras and dogged work, Quigley said, the filmmaker got "wonderful" video of cougars feeding in the wild, hiding their kills, mating, playing with a stick and raising a kitten.
"Viewers will see some aspects of cougars nobody has ever seen before," Quigley said. "In the film we tried to really take people into the lives of cougars."The first time I saw it, I felt it was a tremendous privilege to be allowed into the life and behaviors of wild cougars. They generally avoid people."
Cougars are "super survivors," Quigley said.In the 1930s, cougars were eliminated in most of the United States — poisoned, baited and killed by bounty hunters, much like their fellow predators, wolves. The cats were more successful in avoiding extermination in the Northern Rockies and rugged parts of the West.
Thirty years ago, thanks to Maurice Hornocker's scientific research in Idaho, cougars were reclassified from predators to big game species. Had that not happened, Quigley said, there's a good chance cougars would have been wiped out.
Today cougars are probably the "least endangered of the big cats," Quigley said. Though the Florida panther is endangered, cougars are big game species in most Western states, like Montana. They're hunted, but wildlife managers control the hunt to maintain healthy populations. The exceptions are polar opposites: Texas, where cougars can be shot on sight, and California, where voters outlawed hunting of cougars.
"The cougar is doing quite well and expanding in the Midwest," Quigley said.
A big threat to cougars now may be wolves. Since wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park, there are fewer cougar kittens. From 2004 to 2008, out of the four to six females tracked near Jackson, Wyo., only one litter was produced, Quigley said. It's not yet clear whether wolves directly kill kittens or disrupt cougar females' behavior.
Quigley said he hopes research on cougars will translate into better understanding of big cats in other parts of the world. Now with the nonprofit group Panthera, he directs its program to save jaguars. Monday night, the National Geographic channel will broadcast "Hunt for the Shadow Cat."
Jaguars "are at a critical time," Quigley said. "Development of Latin America is happening at a rapid pace."
Smithsonian magazine reported in its October issue on "The Jaguar Freeway," Panthera's effort to maintain corridors connecting jaguar populations from Mexico to South America, so the cats can interbreed and avoid becoming isolated and vulnerable.
Quigley said he hopes the TV documentaries will produce "an elevated level of appreciation of the ecology and natural history of big cats."
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