70 Mountain Lions of the Black Hills
neutrophil infiltration of the corneal tissues (Jansen 2011). We began capturing lions
and received reports of cats that appeared to be going blind (D. J. Thompson, pers.
commun.). One observation was of a female in Custer State Park who was commonly
found at a “bone pile,” suggesting that the cat was unable to make kills and had re-
sorted to scavenging. A second observation was of a relatively young female (about
3.5 years old) with kittens that was occupying an area close to a campground in the
central Black Hills. Despite concern that we might end up documenting a first attack
on a human in the Black Hills— a partially blind lion attempting to capture non-
typical prey (i.e., humans)— the decision was made not to euthanize but to keep watch
on this individual. Fortunately, the cat did not attack anyone, and her eyes seemed to
eventually clear to some extent (fig. 5.2, bot tom).
One of my gradu ate students, Dan Thompson, transported the carcass of one
individual that had this cloudy- eye condition to the Animal Research Diagnostic Lab-
oratory at SDSU in an attempt to document the pathogen involved with the disease.
Preliminary diagnosis suggested that the pathogen was Chlamydia, and unfortu-
nately, the local media released this preliminary information. As a result, USA Today
published a story stating that mountain lions in the Black Hills were infected with
figure 5.1. A Taenia cyst collected from deer in the southern Black Hills in the early
years of the 2000s. Taenia omissa is a common parasite of mountain lions and has been
documented in mountain lions throughout their range. Photo by Teresa (Frink) Zimmerman.