Nature Canada

Collaring a Cougar in Cypress Hills

Sarah Kirkpatrick-Wahl is a volunteer at Nature Canada. She is collaborating on designing and creating a geodatabase for species at risk within Canadian federally protected areas. This summer Sarah took a break from volunteering with us to work with two conservation projects studying the two largest cats in the Americas. Her first conservation project took her to Belize, where she tracked jaguars deep into the jungle. In this post, Sarah shares her story of tracking a cougar family – and capturing a kitten – in western Canada’s Cypress Hills Interprovicial Park.

Spanning the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan is a unique island ecosystem in the prairies, the Cypress Hills. All the top predators were removed from the area 100 years ago by extensive hunting, trapping and poisoning campaigns. In the past decade cougars have started to reclaim their home in the Hills.

I traveled to Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park in May to work with Carl Morrison, a masters student at the University of Alberta working under the supervision of Dr. Mark Boyce. Carl is studying the impact that the seasonal flux of human use of the area has on cougar habitat selection, movement and dispersal.

To study this cougars are captured and fitted with a GPS collar. Capture work is no doubt one of the most exciting aspects of this research, mostly done in the winter when the cougars can be tracked by their prints left in the snow. However I was lucky enough to assist with some capture work this summer – it was a thrilling experience!

Tracking the Ghost Cats

At the end of June we headed to the West Block of Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park to track down SK2, an adult female collared this past winter. Camera traps set around the park showed her with three kittens. Her kittens were born in May 2010, so at just over a year old they were large enough to be fitted with a collar.

I was part of the first team to head out and pin point SK2’s location. Since she was already collared we are able to track her using radio telemetry. We started in the area that she had last been heard from, and a morning of thorough searching only proved that she was certainly not in that area. A frustrating morning to be sure, especially since when we met up with the rest of the team we learned they had picked up her signal driving into the park from another direction. No searching at all for them!

The day was really hot, so we waited until late afternoon to head out and get an exact location on SK2 to move in. Lorne Hindbo with South Ram Outfitters brought five hounds for the capture. So many hounds were brought in because we were potentially going after four cougars. We moved into a small patch of bush right between the park and a private residence. I got to lead one of the dogs. She was so excited, and pulled me through the bush to keep up with the pack.

Getting the dogs ready for the capture

We got to the point where Carl could pick up SK2’s signal with just the receiver, no antenna or cable, which means that she was very close!

There were a bunch of people out for the capture, and we all lined up on the plateau facing the bush and Lorne walked into the bush with the dogs. I guess the dogs have an easier time picking up the scent on clear track in the snow in winter, because it seemed like they found the cougars bedded down before they even picked up the scent. It was pretty neat to watch. The bush was really quiet, and then an explosion of barking dogs and shaking trees.

It was all over in a few moments. We heard Lorne over the radio letting us know that 2 cats had treed, one being SK2. When threatened cougars climb a tree so that they are out of reach of the threat. This is great for the researchers because we were able to walk right underneath the tree without putting ourselves in a dangerous situation, and the cougars generally feel safe and calm up in the tree.

Collaring SK9

Walking into the bush I was awe struck when I looked up and saw SK2’s kitten – it was the first cougar I had ever seen in the wild. It would be collared and called SK9. He had no problem staring straight into the eyes of the people below and focusing on each of us in turn. It is a pretty intense feeling looking a wild animal in the eye.

Just a little ways off was SK2. She has been through the ringer! Her once perfect face was covered in scars and looked swollen. She was clearly in a pretty serious scrap with another cat. Her rough shape just goes to illustrate the rough reality that these cats face in the wild. But that hasn’t stopped her from caring for three nearly full grown kittens in addition to herself.

Taking measurements of SK9

Carl shot SK9 in the tree with a tranquillizer dart and he fell asleep very quickly. He slid out of the tree as he fell asleep. It was a short fall and we were ready with a strong tarp to catch him in a fireman’s catch and slowly lowered him to the ground. The fall really could not have gone more perfectly! Once on the ground we took various measurements including body length, canine length, head size and paw size as well as weight. He weighed 85lbs. His large paws showed that he still has a lot of growing to do. We had bottles of ice cold water to help keep his temperature down, and we were constantly monitoring his breathing, heart rate and temperature. I got to listen to his heart beat which was really cool.

The entire time SK2 was just up in her tree watching us. She seemed very relaxed considering what we were doing to her kitten Carl administered the reversal drugs and, SK9 woke up very, very slowly. We left him when we were sure that he was awake and gaining mobility. It was getting dark by the time we finally finished.

A couple of people went out to check on them the following morning. SK2 and SK9 were together, and they had moved somewhat, so we were able to confirm that he was ok. Since the capture we have been receiving GPS data for both SK2 and SK9, and the family is doing very well in the Cypress Hills.

SK9 will now be tracked for a year, in which time we will monitor his movements and visit locations of high activity to determine what he is feeding on. It will be especially interesting to see him reach maturity and disperse from his mother and siblings. Cougars in the Cypress Hills are thriving and enjoy an area mostly devoid of competing predators and an abundant prey base – SK2 and her family are no exception!

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