Disease Ecol ogy of Mountain Lions 71sexually transmitted diseases. Additional analyses, however, did not support Chlamydia
as the primary pathogen involved with this syndrome.
We continued to attempt to document the pathogen by swabbing the eyes of
captured lions and submitting samples to a laboratory at Colorado State University
(Jansen 2011). At the time when the disease was most prevalent, I estimated that
5–10% of the mountain lions in the Black Hills suffered from it and suspected that it
might have been transferred to mountain lions when they were killing and consuming
figure 5.2. Change in eye characteristics of a mountain lion with cloudy
eye syndrome. Top, a healthy mountain lion; middle, a mountain lion with
cloudy cornea; bottom, a mountain lion that has recovered from the
disease. Note: those lions that recovered continued to display partial
cloudiness of the cornea. Photos by Brian Jansen.