lions in Alberta

[Emily]

from the Edmonton Journal
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/n ... 017427198d
its worth clicking on that link to see pix, maps, etc.

Alberta's elusive lion in winter
Growing numbers of secretive cougars walk among us from Canmore to Cypress Hills
Ed Struzik, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Sunday, March 23
EDMONTON / Three years ago, Alberta government biologist Dale Eslinger was hiking along the border of Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park when he spotted what he thought was a doe deer.
But once the animal came out of the shadows, Eslinger quickly realized he had come face to face with a cougar.
"We were no more than 35 metres apart and it locked onto me right away," he recalls. "For about four or five seconds, it didn't flinch. And then just like that, it slunk under the fence and disappeared in one fluid motion without making a sound."

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Cougar tagged near Nordegg
Ed Struzik, The Journal

Ten years ago, anyone other than a biologist reporting a sighting like this would have been greeted with deep skepticism. Cougars retreated from this part of the world shortly after the first Europeans arrived.
But now there is no doubt that the cats have returned to southeastern Alberta.
Shortly before Eslinger's sighting, a spotted cougar kitten was found on the side of the highway, a victim of traffic. Recently, a local landowner found three members of a family group -- a female and two grown kittens -- caught in coyote snares he had set on his land.
But it was a cottage owner who had the biggest start when he discovered a cougar eating a deer that it had killed and dragged under his deck porch.
No one knows how many cougars there are in Cypress Hills. The number could be as low as eight or as many as 15. But the animals there are doing so well that biologists now believe there are three breeding females in the park. That makes the Cypress Hills the most easterly cougar breeding region in Canada.
For hard-core fans of the North American lion, this comes as no surprise. Last month, a trapper in southern Wisconsin was stunned when a cougar lunged out at him from behind a hay mound. It was one of dozens that have been reported in the Midwest in recent years.
Cougars have extended their range so far and wide in North America that they've been spotted, detected or tracked in places as remote as the Yukon and Nahanni National Park in the Northwest Territories. DNA evidence also suggests that the eastern cougar may have returned to Fundy National Park in New Brunswick.
University of Alberta biologist Mark Boyce
isn't surprised.
"Cougars are incredibly adaptable animals," he says.
"They can move in and out of areas virtually undetected. Most residents of Canmore, for example, probably don't realize that there are cougars walking in between their houses at night on a fairly regular basis. As long as they have food to prey on, they can do very well."
Boyce says there are many other reasons why the cougar is thriving. North American jurisdictions no longer consider them vermin. Nor do they offer bounties to landowners and hunters who kill them. White-tailed deer have expanded their range well outside the area they once roamed, so cougars are following them.
In the case of the Cypress Hills, cougars are discovering that there are no wolves or grizzly bears competing with them for a healthy population of prey.
As might be expected, people living in the Cypress Hills area are either pleased or very upset about the return of the big cat.
Alberta's elusive lion in winter
Growing numbers of secretive cougars walk among us from Canmore to Cypress Hills
Ed Struzik, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Sunday, March 23
That's one reason why Boyce has a graduate student trying to figure out what the cougars are eating, where they tend to go, and how close they get to humans and livestock.
"You can understand why there's a difference of opinion," says Michelle Bacon, the student who is doing the study. "Some people genuinely fear for their safety and the welfare of their livestock. Others think it's really cool to have this big cat in the park."
So far it hasn't been easy for Bacon. She has yet to catch one of the elusive animals this winter.
But to her delight she has seen one cougar and caught several more on a remote camera she has set up on a trail in the hills.
One remarkable sequence of shots shows what appears to be four fully grown lions walking along a trail.
"The initial reaction was that this was a pride of lions," says Boyce. "But it was a female with three juveniles that were almost fully grown. It would have been quite the surprise had someone been walking on that trail and surprised them."
Ironically, cougars aren't targeted the way wolves are by wildlife managers, even though they are more dangerous and just as effective in putting a dent in elk, sheep and caribou populations that are considered vulnerable.
Part of that may be cultural -- wolf lovers are still having trouble getting people to think of the animals as something other than the "big, bad wolf" that kills both sheep and little children.
But there are signs in some places that the infatuation with cougars is waning.
In Washington, where the state has stepped up hunting in response to rising complaints about cougars, the governor recently signed a bill that could expand the quota.
That's set off a firestorm of controversy similar to the one that has ignited so much outrage over Alberta's plan to cull wolves to protect dwindling elk and caribou numbers.
For now, however, the so-called "ghost walkers" of Alberta's forests continue to profit from what they do best -- staying out of sight and under the radar.
estruzik@thejournal.canwest.com