MountainLion_MountainIslandsandYoungThugs_Paredes_Marcos_LajitasTX_3April2001_Reel2149.wav

Marcos Paredes [00:00:00] We always like to focus on the charismatic megafauna, the really cool, gnarly, growly big stuff, you know. But I've, and I have been involved in some of the studies here in the Park. Not as a researcher, but providing logistical support and help with the, you know, there was a study years back done with mountain lions in the Park.

Marcos Paredes [00:00:33] One of the things that we were looking at was dispersal, you know, dispersal of these young males, you know, two-year old males, and dispersal of the lion population in general, and what was going on out there. And what what's sparked this work off, like all works, you know, a reaction to some, something that happened. That's usually what motivates us. You know, we react to things, we don't act on.

Marcos Paredes [00:01:01] And some kid up in the Chisos, so so I believe it was, must have been '87, '86 or '87. Got drug off by his, his scalp by a lion and actually had his scalp pulled back and it was a, you know, not common, but it was a lion mauling in the Park.

Marcos Paredes [00:01:27] And so immediately there was some some money made available to study the lion population and how we can prevent these future incidents.

Marcos Paredes [00:01:37] And, and that's really what we looked at was the dispersal. And, of course, one of the things that we found was, like everything else out here, their dispersal is directly connected to water, and the water has a direct relationship to the amount of rain that we're getting. And so as we saw, that is a, that we went into periods of drought and water sources dried up and became scarcer.

Marcos Paredes [00:02:17] They, they started concentrating more and more on these mountain islands and.. "Mountain Islands and Desert Seas". You should write that down and read that book. "Mountain Lions and Desert Seas", Frederick Gelbach. But there's no more. I think the title explains the whole book, but that's what we have out here in the Chihuahua desert, are these, these remnant mountain islands in this sea of Chihuahuan Desert.

Marcos Paredes [00:02:47] And as the water sources would start to dry up, the lions move in to where the prey base is. You know, all the little skunks and deer and raccoon and everything, they're going to go to where they've still got food to eat. And so, as the prey base starts becoming more concentrated in these greener, cooler elevations where we're still getting some water, then the predators come in and become concentrated in those areas as well.

Marcos Paredes [00:03:15] And, and that's when we would start seeing an increase in lion-visitor interactions, you know. So they get more of them in there, they're more concentrated.

Marcos Paredes [00:03:29] And, and then the other thing we were looking at was what type of lion, you know, was most likely to have an encounter with a human and you know, who do you have to worry about the most? Well, this answer was really pretty simple, so you know that this, the same folks you have to worry about in Houston is those young dumb kids, you know, that a, you know, dispersal-age males, two-year old, teenagers, young thugs, you know, that haven't got enough sense to, to fend for themselves yet. So they're opportunistic.

Marcos Paredes [00:04:12] And that, you know, that was who presented problems in the, to visitors in the lion population. You get a two-year old dispersal-age male, you know, that hasn't really honed his hunting skills. And you could tell them, you know. We were tracking a lot of these guys and we had collars on them.

Marcos Paredes [00:04:32] And you could always tell these young dumb kid lions because they smelled like skunks, because skunks were one of the easiest things for them to get. You know, you know, until you learn to hunt deer, you'll have to settle for skunk and and suffer the consequences. So they always smelled like skunks.