Mountain Lions of the Black Hills

Nutritional Ecol ogy of Mountain Lions 99

the be hav ior and distribution of new and possibly “naive” prey (Berger, Swenson, and
Persson 2001), and become adept at capturing these prey as the population is man-
aged to an equilibrium where sufficient prey are available to support the needs of those
predators. Predators start with familiar prey and those that are easy to capture, learn
how to capture prey that represent a relatively low risk of injury or death, and fi nally
opportunistically capture more risky prey species, using behavioral cues linked to prob-
ability of success.

Lit er a ture Cited

Ackerman, B. B., F. G. Lindzey, and T. P. Hemker. 1984. Cougar food habits in southern Utah.
Journal of Wildlife Management 48:147–155.
Barber- Meyer, S. M., P. J. White. and L. D. Mech. 2007. Survey of selected pathogens and
blood par ameters of northern Yellowstone elk: Wolf sanitation effect implications.
American Midland Naturalist 158:369–381.
Berger, J., J. E. Swenson, and I. Persson. 2001. Recolonizing carnivores and naïve prey:
Conservation lessons from Pleistocene extinctions. Science 291:1036–1039.
Cudmore, K. W. 2017. An evaluation of deer and pronghorn surveys in South Dakota. Master’s
thesis, SDSU.

300

250

200

Number

150

100

50

0

19961997199819992000200120022003200420052006200720082009201020112012

Population size Harvest

2013

Porcupine

Mule deer

Domestics

Deer (white-tailed

and mule deer)

Deer

Elk

figure 6.12. Population size and harvest of mountain lions in the Black Hills.

Food habits changed based on ease of capture and knowledge of new prey,

progressing from porcupine and mule deer in the 1990s to opportunistic

captures of high- risk species including elk after 2010.