UC Santa Cruz mountain lion study shows “the power of the pounce”

A new study by UC Santa Cruz researchers looks at the energetics of mountain lions’ hunting behavior.

Using a new wildlife tracking collar they developed, the researchers were able to continuously monitor the movements of mountain lions in the wild and determine how much energy the big cats use to stalk, pounce, and overpower their prey.

The team’s findings are published in the Oct. 3 edition of “Science” and they help explain why most big cats use a “stalk and pounce” hunting strategy.

The new “SMART” wildlife collar–equipped with GPS, accelerometers, and other high-tech features–tells researchers not just where an animal is but what it is doing . It also lets researchers see how much the animal’ activities “cost” in terms of energy expenditure.

Professor Terrie Williams says this information can be used to develop better wildlife management plans.

But getting to the point of being able to interpret the data from the collars has been a lengthy process, researchers said. They first had to perform calibration studies with mountain lions in captivity, including training the animals to walk and run on a treadmill and then measuring their oxygen consumption at different activity levels.

“People just didn’t believe you could get a mountain lion on a treadmill, and it took me three years to find a facility that was willing to try,” Williams said.

According to Williams, the treadmill data showed that mountain lions do not have the aerobic capacity for sustained, high-energy activity. “

The study’s coauthor, Chris Wilmers, led a team that deployed the collars on wild cats in the Santa Cruz mountains. Wilmers leads the Santa Cruz Puma Project, which has been tracking mountain lions in the area to study the effects of habitat fragmentation and developing new technology for understanding the animals’ behavior and energetics.