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A black bear recorded scavenging and feeding
on a deer killed by a mountain lion with a
motion-triggered camera. Bears regularly
steal food from mountain lions, and mountain
lion kills are monitored by biologists to measure
the effects of scavengers on the kill rate of
mountain lions.
Pumas and black bears are the two large carnivores found throughout California. Both species kill deer.
What I found surprised me.: Black bears were having large detrimental effects on pumas. Based on camera data, pumas abandoned over 70% of their kills as soon as bears arrived (Allen et al. 2015). Furthermore, because bear activity is highly seasonal, puma killing and feeding behavior exhibited an interesting seasonal pattern. In the graph below, the time pumas spent at their kills (handling time) is noted in red, while the frequency of how often they killed (kill rate) is in blue. During summer and autumn, the seasons of high bear activity, pumas spent half as much time at their kills of adult deer compared to winter. This is likely due to bears usurping their kills, and as a result, pumas nearly doubled their kill rates during those seasons (Allen et al. 2014). This suggests that bear scavenging signifcantly effects puma kill rates and feeding behavior.
(Figure courtesy of Allen et al. 2014)
Because bears regularly usurped puma kills and therefore reduced the energy available to them, I expected pumas to try to limit or avoid scavenging by bears. One option would be for pumas to be more aggressive in defending their kills. Although I did document a puma killing a bear that was feeding on its kill (Allen et al. 2015), this did not appear to be a commonly used tactic. Another frequently used tactic is for subordinate species to shift their habitat use to areas not used by the dominant species, in order to find a refuge from competition. We analyzed this, but found that no matter in which habitat pumas killed ungulates, bears located and usurped the puma kills (Elbroch et al. 2015). This suggests that spatial refuges from bears do not exist, and thus, it is likely that the seasonal refuge, when bears are hibernating, is the only refuge from bear scavenging and competition for pumas
A black bear looking up from feeding (Photo by Max Allen)
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In addition to usurping carcasses and forcing pumas to make more kills, I suspect that bears are also having a negative impact on puma populations by directly killing kittens. I was only able to find limited evidence of this, however, Field biologists in the Yellowstone region have found that bears, both black bears and grizzlies, are important causes of mortality for puma kittens. This may be simply be bears killing in order to eat, as bears eat the cubs they kill, or it could be a mechanism to reduce the population of their competitors.d other ungulates and as a result they often compete with each other. In Mendocino National Forest, where I completed my PhD project, black-tailed deer, including adults and fawns, make up the vast majority of puma diets. In contrast black bears only prey on fawns, although fawns can make up a large part of their diet during spring and summer. Since pumas prey on both adults and fawns year-round while bear predation is restricted to young fawns, it would be easy to assume that pumas are more responsible for the dynamics of ungulate populations than bears. However, this is leaving out an important part of the story.
While bears do hunt and kill prey themselves, they also frequently scavenge dead animals that have been killed by other predators, such as pumas, or that have died from other causes. Bears’ strong sense of smell helps them locate carrion, while their large size make them a dominant scavenger as they can both usurp and defend the carcass from other animals. One focus of my Ph.D. research was trying to understand how bear scavenging affects puma feeding behavior. In order to do this I visited puma kills to determine how often bears were present, and I placed cameras on fresh puma kills and compared behaviors at those with and without bears.
What does all of this mean for pumas in areas without bears? My current study area in Santa Cruz, California is only a few hours drive from my previous study area in Mendocino County, California. Santa Cruz does not have bears, and as you might expect puma densities are over five times higher. What is surprising is that people seem to have similar effects as bears. Pumas spend less time feeding at kills near houses, retreat further from their kills in these areas to bed down during the day, and as a result exhibit higher kill rates in more human-dominated areas (Smith et al. 2015). It seems that maybe pumas just can’t catch a break.
Puma ecology and feeding behavior is an ongoing area of my research. Keep up to date with my research and findings at facebook.com/thewildlives
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Works Cited
Allen, M.L., L.M. Elbroch, C.C. Wilmers, and H.U. Wittmer. 2015. The comparative effects of large carnivores on the acquisition of carrion by scavengers. American Naturalist 185: 822-833.
Allen, M.L., L.M. Elbroch, D.S. Casady, and H.U. Wittmer. 2014. Seasonal Variation in the Feeding Ecology of Pumas (Puma concolor) in northern California. Canadian Journal of Zoology 92: 397–403.
Elbroch, L.M., P. Lendrum, M.L. Allen, and H.U. Wittmer. 2015. Nowhere to hide: pumas, black bears, and competition refuges. Behavioral Ecology 26: 247–254.
Smith, J.A., Y. Wang, C.C. Wilmers. 2015. Top carnivores increase their kill rates on prey as a response to human-induced fear. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 282: 20142711.
Representatives for Gov. Matt Mead have not responded to phone calls about Wyoming’s plan for regaining control over its wolf population, which is now managed by the federal government.
Wyoming officials have said they were waiting to see the outcome of legislation that would have taken gray wolves in the western Great Lakes region and Wyoming off the endangered list. But that proposal, backed by U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis and Sen. John Barrasso, failed to make it into massive year-end congressional tax and spending package signed by President Obama Friday.
Wyoming has appealed a U.S. District Court judge’s 2014 decision that took control of wolves away from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
Renny MacKay, a Game and Fish spokesman, deferred to Mead’s office on questions about the next steps for Wyoming.
“What I can say is that the Wyoming Game and Fish Department was standing ready on Monday to take over management of wolves and we’ll be ready next Monday as well,” MacKay said. “We’re ready to do that on a moment’s notice.”
“The judge’s decision in Washington, D.C., did not find fault with our management of wolves,” he said. “It was about whether or not a portion of the plan was [legally] binding or non-binding.”
A new academic paper in the journal Science questions whether ecological theory and sound data are playing a role in determining wolf hunting seasons in the northern Rockies.
The paper, written by an international group of 14 carnivore biologists, argues that current wolf hunting pressure is not sustainable and that the accuracy of population estimates are not reliable. The authors also call for the states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming to set clearly defined policy goals.
“We feel it’s time for targets to be defined more explicitly,” Montana State University ecology professor Scott Creel, the study’s lead author, said in an interview. “Right now we don’t really know what the numeric goal is. It’s not stated.
“We know there’s a goal to avoid relisting under the Endangered Species Act — all three states want to avoid that,” he said. “But is that it? ... If that is the goal, what is the ecological justification for that? It’s certainly understandable that there’s probably a social argument they’re responding to there, but is that really the goal in regard to wildlife ecology?”
Wolf hunting is allowed in Montana and Idaho, but in Wyoming hunts have been put on hold by a Washington, D.C., judge’s decision.
The Equality State is home to the smallest wolf population of the three states, and here wildlife managers have openly sought to hold numbers a safe distance from but as close as possible to the now-void delisting agreement: 150 animals. Wyoming’s statewide population, which hasn’t been hunted for 15 months, was last estimated at 333 animals.
In Idaho and Montana, where at the beginning of 2015 there were an estimated 1,324 wolves, goals have been more vague. The populations in those two states are several times the recovery goals and are hunted and trapped intensively.
“The data shows that survival and reproduction has gone down while population has gone up,” Creel said. “That’s an impossible result.”
Creel and his co-authors criticize the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for considering Idaho’s counting methodology a sound way of assessing the “absolute minimum number of wolves alive.”
“In Idaho, which holds the largest segment of the Northern Rocky Mountain distinct population segment, tabulated counts are adjusted by substituting mean pack size for smaller pack counts that might have been incomplete (74 percent of packs in 2013) and then multiplying the adjusted counts by 1.125 to account for unseen wolves suspected to be living outside of packs,” the Science paper says.
“Consequently,” the paper says, “the Idaho estimate is (approximately) 1.75 times the number of individuals known to be alive, and the biggest increase in the minimum estimated Northern Rocky Mountain distinct population segment occurred in 2006 with the adoption of this method.”
Mike Jimenez, Fish and Wildlife’s Northern Rocky Mountain wolf coordinator, said he appreciated the academic critique.
“Having people challenge management policy — hunting — that’s a healthy thing,” Jimenez said.
“Having said that,” he said, “one of the critiques that I would offer back is that a lot of the article uses data from annual reports, and the data from annual reports is not research-quality data at all.”
Jimenez used Idaho as an example. He said Idaho managers have purposely curtailed surveillance of breeding pairs once it’s known that there are more than 15, the minimum in the delisting agreement.
Creel and his co-authors, Jimenez said, falsely assumed the lower numbers of breeding pairs of wolves in the reports meant a lower number of breeding pairs in the wild.
Jimenez also defended hunting as a central component to management.
“Think of wolves in Canada and Alaska. They’ve never not been hunted,” Jimenez said. “So did that same conclusion work there?
“I would say the questions [they pose] are very good to ask,” he said. “Their conclusions also need to be challenged and asked questions about.”
When the North Dakota Game and Fish Department instituted a mountain lion season a decade ago it was a novelty. The sightings of mountain lions in the state had been rare and reported sightings often questioned. A lot has changed over the years.
There’s no doubt that mountain lions roam the state, with the majority in the western part of North Dakota. They have been confirmed as far east as Grand Forks and they are hunted across the state.
Lion hunting is allowed in two zones, Zone 1 in the western part of the state and Zone 2 , which is everything east of Highway 8. There are two seasons in Zone 1, an early season when 14 lions can be taken and a late season when seven kills are permitted and hunters can use dogs. There’s no quota in Zone 2 because it’s an area where mountain lions travel through and don’t stay long.
It appears hunters, especially those with hounds, have gotten too good at tracking the lions. Game and Fish is considering adjustments to the lion hunting regulations. While some hunters and landowners don’t believe the lion population has been declining, Game and Fish has the numbers to back up its concerns. The Tribune believes the state shouldn’t allow the situation to return to the days when lions were a rarity. While lions on occasion can pose a danger to livestock they need to be preserved.
Since lion hunting was legalized, there have been 97 mountain lion kills in Zone 1 and nine in Zone 2. The Fort Berthold Indian Reservation has its own program and 12 lions have been killed there, for a statewide total of 118, according to Game and Fish records.
Stephanie Tucker, a biologist with the state Game and Fish Department, told Tribune reporter Lauren Donovan that research starting in 2011 shows the lions have a 42 percent to 48 percent survival rate, but a rate higher than 70 percent is needed to sustain the population. Tucker studies the lions after they are killed to obtain biological and demographic information. The Game and Fish information indicates the number of lions in western North Dakota has been declining since 2011 and department officials will meet with the public in February about how best to preserve hunting and a sustainable population. Hunters with hounds made quick work of the late season hunt when dogs are allowed.
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Hopefully the department can come up with a plan that gives a little to everyone. A reduced quota, possibly a shorter season or a lottery and maybe fewer lions allowed to be killed using hounds.
Chaston Lee, a Grassy Butte rancher who trains hounds to track mountain lions, suggested to Donovan that Game and Fish offer a training period where hounds could learn to track lions but there would be no killing.
“It’s not all about killing, it’s the memories and the exercise. … They’re so majestic; so cool,” Lee said of the lions.
He’s right, they are great creatures and we shouldn’t allow the mountain lion population to be depleted.
The first year of the hunting season (2005-06), seven mountains were killed. The next four seasons, 11-12 cats were killed, until the 2010-11 season when 22 were killed.
The high came in 2011-12, when 31 cats were taken. The last two seasons, there have been
23 and 20 mountain lions killed, respectively. Tucker said those numbers reflect all forms of mortality, whether from hunters, road kill or protection of property.
Tucker said data shows that until 2011, the mountain lion population in Zone 1 was increasing. But that has changed, she said.
“We’ve been declining the last three years,” she said. Part of that has had to do with the success of those hunting with hounds.
“Hound hunters are still having a lot of success,” she said. “We know our harvest season is having an impact.”
Conversely, Tucker said, those hunting without dogs are having less success than in previous years.
Tucker said data from the first three years of the study indicates the survival rate of the North Dakota mountain lion population is significantly lower than other states.
She said lions here showed a survival rate of 42 percent for two years following their capture and tagging. That compares to survival rates of 59 percent in the Pacific Northwest, 64-74 percent in Utah and 67-97 percent in Canada where similar studies have been conducted
