NPS Rangers Mark Peyton, Sarah Milligan, and Priscilla Hare (who moved into Darien's house!) offered us to see if we could setup our Camptraptions DSLR phototraps at a cougar kill site. They saw on their GPS that one of their tracked cougars, a mother with two 10 month old cubs had made a kill in Bandelier at an accessible area far from people that would be safe for setting up the cameras. They can tell a kill has been made when a cougar is hanging around the same spot for a day based on a GPS. Otherwise they keep moving around their territory. In this case only the mom was collared and not the cubs. So they asked if we wanted to try and set up our cameras. We were around and of course thought it would be a great opportunity to give it a shot. Gowri had to be in Santa Fe so Aditya and I went with Mark, Sarah and Priscilla. As we walked the 2 miles to the site, they didn't pick up the collared mother with the telemetry. They wondered if maybe this was a kill of small animal so maybe they moved on. But once we got to the site they did pick her up. She was in the canyon near the kill that was up on a mesa so one could only pick her up once we got close. She didn't come near the site while were were there but stayed close as they do when they have a kill. No cubs were around either. Apparently they usually stay away if they hear human voices and usually come at dusk anyways.
It turned out there was a large mule deer female they had killed neatly covered in dirt between some juniper trees. I was surprised at how clean everything with no smell. Cats are clean! We setup our cameras doing our best to guess the camera and flash settings, guess how the cougars will approach, etc. Also we tried to prop up the tripods with rocks so the curious cubs couldn't easily knock them over. As you'll see that didn't work! So we set everything up and went home. The next morning Priscilla and I hiked out to the site and saw the cameras had been knocked over and the kill was mostly eaten! There was a lot of the deer left in the evening and they managed to eat almost all of it. Lesson learned. Use more rocks to prevent them from knocking things over!
Looking at the first camera, we did get some very nice shots but then it got knocked over in a few minutes. But then luckily camera 2 took a lot more shots before a curious cub picked up the motion sensor and moved it until the cord detached. However, their messing with the cameras actually proved lucky in some ways. First, we got great shots of them showing curiosity towards the camera and motion sensor. Then the cubs decided to sit right in front of the camera. If they hadn't knocked over the flash those photos would be over exposed. Also they showed up at 6 pm when there is plenty of light so even shots without flash were good. We messed up and set up the video camera too close to the kill and at night it would be overexposed due to the video light. But since they came during daylight we got good video. All things considered we got great shots and video for a first attempt and know what to do going forward. The rangers are superexcited and want to try again when a good opportunity arises. They think its great to better interpret what the cougars are doing and for public outreach. In the following slideshow I put in comments underneath each slide to tell the story. I think this turned out to be as fun as safaris we've been on. Even though we never saw the cougars with our own eyes, tracking with the antenna, finding the kill and trying to setup the cameras properly made it really fun. Then the excitement to see what happened once we left. Also it being in our home town made it special (Slideshow).
Four days after the previous kill, the same mother cougar killed a large female elk at another accessible location. We made our way out to the kill. This time we got great shots of mother couger feeding but no cubs. The cubs did show up on night 2 when the DSLR was not setup so they are safe! Also another uncollared male showed up too. Again the slideshow has comments explaining what happened: (Slideshow).
