Cougars and their challenges have been within the information these days with the loss of life of Los Angeles’ celeb mountain lion, P-22. L.A.’s beloved cougar lived in a 9-square mile patch of habitat within the midst of the town, confined by freeways to a comparatively small vary. His was a high-profile story that completely illustrates a horrible predicament for cougars and lots of different species. As habitat fragmentation continues to create more and more smaller and unconnected areas, many species are impacted—particularly low-density, wide-ranging species like cougars.
Whereas the Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula could also be characterised by its wilderness reasonably than its city sprawl, cougars there face comparable constraints. The peninsula is surrounded by water in three instructions, in addition to the teeming Interstate Freeway 5 (I-5) hall. The authors of a brand new examine from Panthera, the worldwide wild cat conservation group and accomplice tribal nations, notice that within the Pacific Northwest, “present habitat fragmentation attribute of the Anthropocene might threaten Cougar metapopulation connectivity vital to sustaining genetic well being of the species.”
Caught on a chunk of land surrounded by water sounds fairly constrictive for an animal like a male cougar, which can dominate a house vary of 50 to 150 sq. miles. However what if cougars might swim?
Till now, anecdotal and scientific proof for swimming cougars has been lean, main scientists to surprise about giant our bodies of water serving as a barrier to cougar motion. Nonetheless, the brand new analysis from Panthera reveals that cougars can swim surprisingly lengthy distances, “difficult present excited about the extent and connectivity of the cougar vary,” in response to a press launch for the analysis.
What’s in a Identify?
What is the distinction between cougars, mountain lions, and pumas? Nothing! They’re one in similar: Puma concolor. To additional confuse issues, the Flordia panther can be a member of the puma genus, making them not a panther however a subspecies of cougar.
As a part of Panthera’s Olympic Cougar Mission, a analysis initiative on the Peninsula, a mom cougar and her 1½-year-old son, often called M161, had been outfitted with GPS collars to trace their motion. The press launch explains what occurred subsequent:
“To scientists’ astonishment, M161 spent a number of months on land after his collaring earlier than swimming 1.1 km [.68 miles] from the japanese fringe of the Peninsula to Puget Sound’s Squaxin Island. Based mostly on this journey, scientists estimate that a minimum of 3,808 of the Salish Sea’s 6,153 islands may very well be accessible to ‘island hopping’ cougars.”
Tim Melling
Dr. Mark Elbroch, Puma Program Director for Panthera and co-author of the examine, instructed Treehugger in an e mail that “M161 might have made one other few quick swims to go undetected beneath I-5 within the Nisqually Nationwide Wildlife Refuge—a route we’d by no means thought of earlier than.”
The Olympic Peninsula is bordered to the north and east by the Salish Sea, a chilly and deep physique of water between Washington and British Columbia. M61’s swim was recorded within the Puget Sound, an inlet of the Salish Sea.
“These water our bodies are dotted with many islands of all sizes, creating a posh mosaic of land and sea that Cougars and different species could possibly navigate utilizing a collection of swims or ‘hops,’” write the examine authors.
M61’s swim from the japanese Olympic Peninsula to Squaxin Island allowed the researchers to foretell the entire variety of islands within the Salish Sea that could be accessible to cougars by way of swimming. They used M61’s journey as a possible higher threshold distance and used cougar sighting information from islands within the Salish Sea to verify or refute their outcomes.
They estimated that 3808 of 6153 islands within the examine space may very well be accessible to cougars with a number of 1.1-kilometer swims. They then confirmed the presence of cougars on 18 of these islands. Amazingly, 4 islands with confirmed cougar sightings would have required swims nearer to 2 kilometers (1.24 miles).
Panthera
With that in thoughts, they elevated the brink distance to 2 kilometers, yielding an extra 775 islands doubtlessly accessible by island hopping.
The findings are notably vital due to cougars’ genetic isolation within the space, due to the limitations beforehand talked about. The roads are particularly regarding. Highways are, in impact, turning the Olympic Peninsula into an island of its personal. The I-5 hall south of Seattle is among the “quickest creating areas on the west coast and is more and more severing wildlife connectivity in western Washington,” in response to Panthera’s Olympic Cougar Mission.
“I-5 is a frightening barrier for wildlife, with each day visitors counts alongside the stretch of land connecting the Olympic Peninsula to mainland Washington starting from 50,000 within the south to 100,000 as you strategy Olympia,” Dr. Elbroch instructed us. “But, this cougar reminded us of the ingenuity of nature—that cougars dealing with what seem like insurmountable obstacles, should discover a technique to join with far-off populations.”
The findings aren’t simply vital for cougar conservation. Cougars are keystone species, and defending them not directly protects quite a few different species of their ecological group. A 2022 Panthera examine, for instance, revealed that cougars keep relationships with an astounding 485 different species.
Whereas the thought of cougars studying to swim to flee the challenges of the pure and constructed atmosphere is a win for Crew Cougar, the Pacific Northwest cougars nonetheless have a tough highway forward. Not solely are there habitat constraints, but additionally, cougar searching is authorized in Washington state. Which seems to be the miserable destiny of our intrepid M161, who was shot and killed on Squaxin Island. (In the meantime, the USDA’s Wildlife Companies program killed 200 cougars in western states in 2021, the final 12 months for which there’s information.)
However as Dr. Elbroch identified, M161 “opened our eyes to new potentialities.” And with Panthera’s work to guard cougars, and particularly to work with the state to make sure I-5 is modified to assist wildlife on the Olympic Peninsula, maybe folks will start to rethink humankind’s relationship with species like cougars—very similar to they did in Los Angeles. And if all else fails, a minimum of we now know that cougars can take to the ocean and swim off to new horizons.
The analysis, “Island Hopping Cougars within the Salish Sea,” was revealed in Northwestern Naturalist.