270 CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME 



NATURAL ENEMIES 



Tn eonvorsation on July 18, ID.'U), .]. Bi-uoo stated that lio had found 

 liundreds of doer kilU'd by mountain lions in the snow, but he had uot 

 found a sing:le instance in which the lion had sprung from a tree upon 

 a deer for which it had lain in wait. He has never known lions to 

 po up a tree exce])t when they have been pnrsued by dogs. Mountain 

 lions sneak up to and often rush out from behind boulders and strike 

 down deer, but I have been unable to find any well-authenticated 

 instance where they have lain in wait in trees and sprung upon deer 

 that passed by. Mountain lion tracks in the suoav show that they ordi- 

 narily ca])ture deer b}' first sighting or scenting them. The big cats 

 then sneak up behind some tree trunk, boulder, or screening clump of 

 brush until they get within rushing distance of the deer which varies 

 from 25 to 75 feet. At this point the lion waits until the deer has its 

 head down feeding. It then makes a few gigantic bounds, covering 

 from 10 to 16 feet at a leap, and hits the deer, knocking it off its feet. 

 The massive forelegs of the lion receive the shock of the impact. Moun- 

 tain lions thus strike down deer by the impetus or force of their fast 

 moving bodies. Deer that have been knocked down are promptly disem- 

 boweled by the lion's strong canine teeth. Lions do not "ride deer 

 around" and then reach over and "cut" the deer's throat, as is popu- 

 larly believed. Only one deer out of several hundred killed by lions and 

 examined by Bruce M'as found to show any tooth or claw marks on the 

 ihroat. Young deer are often killed by being bitten through the neck at 

 the base of the skull or through the back of the shoulder blades. 



The mountain lion does not catch every deer that it seeks to cap- 

 ture. Careful investigation by the writer shows that only about one out 

 of every three attempts is successful. Usually only one rush is made by 

 the lion, and it rarely pursues the deer more than 300 feet. If the 

 deer discovers the lion's attack in time, it usually escapes through quick 

 action by jumping to one side and then rumiing rapidly away. On 

 two occasions I have found where a lion "missed" two deer in succes- 

 sion. Bucks, does and fawns all fall victims, although young deer are 

 killed more frequently than are adults. 



On February 5, 1918. John J. IMcCauley killed a medium-sized 

 female mountain lion that his dogs had treed at 4500 feet on the south 

 side of Pilot Kidge in INIariposa County. After this female had been 

 skinned, she was cut open and found to contain three unborn kittens 

 about the size of Avoodrats. These kittens were alive and opened their 

 mouths. They were spotted and covered with short dense fur and prob- 

 ably would have been born within a few days. By back-tracking the 

 trail of this pregnant lioness, McCauley found that only the previous 

 night she had killed and partly eaten a large three-point buck. This 

 l)r()ves that a pregnant fenude cougar, allliougli heavy with young, was 

 able to strike down and kill a large full-grown buck deer. 



In this same region on January 28, 1921, McCauley treed and 

 killed a lion kitten that was about ten months old and weighed 55 pounds. 

 This half-grown kitten had killed a small deer, and its tracks in the 

 snow showed that it had stayed in an area of approximately one acre 



