Dr. Mark Elbroch, lead scientist of Panthera’s Puma Program, has recently published a critical blog post. In it, he explores the multiple factors that are driving the decline of pumas (Puma concolor, mountain lions, cougars, etc.) near Yellowstone National Park.
Following a fourteen-year study, Dr. Elbroch and his colleagues found that the puma population directly to the north of Jackson, Wyoming dropped by 48% between the years of 2002-2015. The reasons for this stark decline are, as usual, driven by humans.
In the years 1995 and 1996, wolves (Canis lupus) were reintroduced to Yellowstone. This was huge. The return of the ecosystem’s top predator had many positive effects, including a rebound in beaver numbers. This, in turn, strengthened Yellowstone’s wetlands. However, wolves have made life harder for the region’s pumas.
For one thing, wolves occasionally push pumas off kills; forcing them to work harder to get enough food to survive. In addition, wolves are a major cause of kitten mortality. Dr. Elbroch’s post mentions that at least 18% of all the kittens the scientists monitored were killed by wolves.
Then there is the matter of the elk cull.
Elk are the primary prey items for mountain lions near Jackson. But in the year 2000, federal and state wildlife agencies decided that the Jackson elk herd’s numbers needed to be thinned from 16,000 to 11,000 individuals. They also wanted to encourage the elk to space themselves more widely in the landscape, instead of congregating in the National Elk Refuge during the winter.
To accomplish these objectives, game agencies instituted what Dr. Elbroch described as, “‘liberal’ hunting measures” (Elbroch, 2018). I am assuming this means they eased hunting regulations. This move, along with the return of wolves, did lead to a significant reduction in elk numbers.
Unfortunately, elk now keep to the National Elk Refuge even more strongly than they did before. Pumas cannot compete with wolves in the open terrain of the refuge, and so stay in rockier and more densely forested habitats. There are now 70% fewer elk available to pumas during the winter. Consequently, Dr. Elbroch and his team witnessed many pumas starving to death.
Lastly, in 2007 the Wyoming Game and Fish Department decided to target pumas with increased sport hunting. They apparently wanted to reduce the risks to humans and livestock associated with the cats’ presence.
Heightened levels of sport hunting, competition with wolves, and a 70% reduction in the availability of elk had the unsurprising effect of causing great harm to Jackson’s puma population.
To help recover the region’s pumas, Dr. Elbroch and his colleagues recommend greater efforts to redistribute the Jackson elk herd. Furthermore, they advocate for dialing back puma hunting in areas that are inhabited by wolves.
In recent years, multiple studies have found that high levels of sport hunting can increase human-puma conflicts. This casts significant doubt on the notion that more sport hunting is good for pumas, livestock, or people. As Dr. Elbroch points out, ecosystems also need to be managed as unified wholes: not isolated segments.
Click Here for the Original Article by Dr. Mark Elbroch
Further Reading:
A Perfect Storm: How Multi-Jurisdictional Management Affects Mountain Lions – Panthera
The Jaguar 
A “sharp decline” — the man has a gift for understatement. Josh, I didn’t know about this — not the extent of it anyway. It makes me very sad. Thank you for bringing the situation to light. Hugs.
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Hi Teagan,
You’ll find that scientists and academics share a knack for dramatic understatement. Partly it comes from the dry culture of academia; but it’s also considered very important to appear neutral and objective, as these are politically-contentious topics.
I allow myself a few more liberties than the average scientist on this blog, but I still choose my words carefully. As much as I’d like to come out screaming, furthering the political divide surrounding wildlife conservation wouldn’t help the animals that I’m ultimately running this site for.
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Very true, Josh. Thanks for doing this. Hugs.
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What an absolutely smart and informative summary. Great stuff
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Thank you!
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Did they not think this through… and maybe just wonder what the effect would be on the pumas if they thinned the elk population.
The pumas can’t seem to catch break 😔
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I don’t think they were expecting the return of wolves to have such a large effect on pumas. Also, game managers initially hoped that the elk cull would help spread the elk over the landscape more widely, which might’ve helped pumas. But that obviously didn’t go well. The best thing for pumas near Yellowstone would be to stop hunting them, since we now know that heavy sport hunting disrupts pumas’ natural population-management strategies.
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Yeah it obviously didn’t go according to their calculations.
It would be best if they stopped hunting them.
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Are puma attacks on humans a regular occurrence near Yellowstone? I know that they can do humans harm if provoked but it doesn’t seem to be in the news very much. It seems odd that they would have to be hunted as a precautionary measure?
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They don’t need to hunt pumas as a precautionary measure: that’s just an excuse. Puma attacks on humans are extremely rare anywhere; even in California where puma hunting is banned. In fact, we now know that hunting pumas puts people and livestock in more danger, because it throws the cats’ natural social systems into chaos. But there’s always been a lot of hostility towards all types of predatory animals in the US, and such sentiments seem to be making a comeback.
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Josh, thank you for your input on this. I live in a state (Missouri) where pumas are supposedly moving their habitat eastward. I love these “American Lions,” and I hear people voice concern at supposed “puma sightings,” but yet we as humans ought to have the intelligence in order to co-habitat with these creatures. We already have feral creatures that are targeted for any one or another reasons. But I would greatly love to see our national big cat spared the possibility of extinction facing the majestic snow leopord in Asia, as well as the other cats of the Old World. I know you are especially fond of the jaguar (El Tigre?) who also stands along with the puma from Central America to Patagonia. And that goes for the other wild felines in the New World like the lynx and ocelot. Plain and simple, I love these animals, and I believe man co-exist with them. cm
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Thanks for your great message! People coexist with mountain lions in California, where mountain lion hunting is banned. While there are occasional problems, the state has systems for dealing with them. That’s part of what’s needed to coexist with animals like mountain lions and jaguars: knowledge about how to behave around them and science-based systems and plans for minimizing conflict. Of course, the public also needs to realize the immense value of having large predators in an ecosystem and the willingness to allow them to live.
I’m of the opinion, though it may be controversial, that allowing mountain lions to recolonize the east would be a good thing. We need large predators. All of our ecosystems are messed up as a result of the short-sightedness and greed of past and contemporary (mostly European) Americans. It’s time to put things back together.
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