A good friend of this blog, Florida resident Carmel Severson weighing in on the possibility that Pumas cache deer in trees-----

To: Rick Meril
Fm: Carmel Severson
Re: Do Pumas cache deer in trees


 In my presentations I tell people cougars eat their kill on the ground, all my cougar studies lead me to believe this is typical cougar practice. There are many good trees in BC, Mt lions have not been noted to take them up trees there...... &;; they have bear to deal with.

We have plenty of suitable trees here in Florida, our panthers have Bear &; coyotes to deal with, no panthers have been found to tree cache.

Years of observation in captivity, with climbing shelves tree trunks etc..all our cougars eat on the ground, do not take their food onto the shelves, &; if placed in the trunk they will take it to the ground to eat.

Leopards on the other hand if given the opportunity will often take food to their shelves, but will also eat on the ground in some cases.

Could you train a cougar to take meat into a tree I'm sure you could, but I think the verdict remains for cougar researchers, they normally cache prey on the ground. (do bobcats take prey into trees in the wild? I dont know, they normally dont in captivity).

It is not difficult to get the evidence needed if cougars were caching in trees to the degree that they apparently are in the mid west, all these people who observe carcasses need to take them (if in fact they are whole bodies) to their wildlife agency or call them to come out & identify the kill. An expert should be able to determine, from the size of the bite & style of the bite ; other evidence that would surely be around the site who did the deed. Maybe even saliva could be tested for DNA?

Carmel.