How long do cougars live

In Washington, domestic sheep, goats, and llamas are more vulnerable to predation than are cattle and horses. Studies show, though, that proper animal husbandry practices substantially reduce livestock loss.

Find out more about good husbandry practices at: wdfw. In , the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife completed its game management plan to lay out its goals and approaches for managing wildlife in the state through Cougars are solitary, and are difficult to track and study; therefore it is difficult to accurately estimate statewide cougar populations.

But based on six studies in Washington, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife estimates the adult cougar population size is about 1, to 2, animals. Cougars are classified as game animals and an open season and a hunting license are required to hunt them.

May ranchers and farmers kill cougars that damage livestock or property? No permit is required. The killing of a cougar in self-defense, or defense of another, should be reasonable and justified. A person taking such action must have reasonable belief that the cougar poses a threat of serious physical harm, that this harm is imminent, and the action is the only reasonable available means to prevent that harm.

The body of any cougar, whether taken under the direct authority of RCW Cougar attacks on people are extremely rare.

A person is one thousand times more likely to be struck by lightning than attacked by a cougar. Cougars, like any wildlife, can be dangerous; therefore people who live, work, or recreate in cougar habitat should take precautions to reduce their risk of an encounter. In Washington, the one human mortality from a cougar occurred 90 years ago.

During this time, there have been fifteen non-fatal attacks on humans. How can I be safe while hiking or recreating in cougar habitat? There are a number of steps you can take to reduce the possibility of a negative interaction with a cougar.

A cougar sighting does not necessarily mean that there are more cougars in an area. A cougar in, or near, a residential area is also not necessarily human habituated, or associating their food source to humans, and might be a juvenile passing through an area in search of an open territory.

How can people living in cougar country avoid attracting cougars? If you live in cougar country there are a number of steps you can take to avoid attracting cougars to your property. Cougars are very adaptable and are found from western Canada to southern Chile in nearly any environment that supports enough prey to sustain them.

They can be found in forests, mountains, deserts, swamps, and areas of human development. They prefer habitat with enough brush to aid their ambush hunting style, but can also be found in more open areas. Home range size depends on the density of prey, and in North American ranges from 32 to 1, km 2.

Home ranges of male cougars are larger than those of females, are strongly defended against other males, and often overlap the ranges of several females. Females avoid contact within areas of overlap through extensive scent marking with urine, feces, scratches and scrapes.

Cougar dens are only used by a female when rearing young. They can be crevices in rocks, cavities under tree roots, or a hidden spot in dense vegetation. They are sometimes lined with moss or other vegetation, and might be used for several years.

Cougars communicate through visual, olfactory scent , and postural signals, and vocalizations such as low guttural growls, spitting, snarls, and hissing. Cougar mothers growl or hiss when their nurseries are threatened. Nursing cubs emit high-pitched, birdlike chirps and mews. Cougars also purr when together. Older cubs and adults emit whistles. The most spectacular sound is that of a cougar caterwaul, which is an eerie sound that can resemble a child crying, a woman screaming, or the screeching of someone in pain.

Caterwaul sounds are made by females during mating season, especially when males are competing for the same receptive female.

Through their interactions with prey, cougar influence energy flow in ecosystems and thus influence the structure and function of ecosystems. A powerful selective force on prey, cougars can regulate the size of ungulate populations such as deer and elk and thus indirectly affect the impacts of ungulates on plant communities. Cougar kittens have black spots until they are about 6 months old.

Adult males weigh up to pounds about the weight of an adult man , and adult females up to pounds. Where they live: Other than humans, cougars are the most widely distributed land mammal in the Western Hemisphere. Cougars range from northwestern Canada to Patagonia, South America. Click on a range map to see where cougars live in Washington and California. Cougars make their dens in rocky ledges, dense thickets and under uprooted trees. They are highly territorial— a male cougar may use a home range of 50 to square miles for comparison, the City of Seattle is 92 square miles.

What they eat: Cougars hunt primarily from dusk till dawn sunset to sunrise. The historic range of the mountain lion included almost all of North and South America. The species was so wide-reaching and populous that it had multiple subspecies that varied based on location. Throughout the s and early s, people feared the mountain lion because it posed a risk to their livestock. The species was maliciously hunted and almost eradicated from the eastern United States. Due to conservation efforts, mountain lion populations in the western United States are stable, although far lower than they were historically.

While there are still several thousand mountain lions in the wild, their population has significantly decreased from their historical population due to unsustainable hunting, habitat destruction , and conflicts with livestock.

Mountain lions are an "umbrella species" for conservation because their conservation depends on the preservation of large amounts of habitat. A mountain lion usually requires about 13 times as much area as a black bear or 40 times as much area as a bobcat to thrive. By preserving enough wilderness to support a stable mountain lion population, countless other species of plants and animals that share mountain lion habitat benefit. The eastern cougar, a subspecies of mountain lion, was declared officially extinct by the U.

Florida panthers , the other U. There are less than Florida panthers left in the wild. Learn more about our work through our Save LA Cougars campaign.

Unlike other large cats, they cannot roar. Instead they growl, shriek, hiss and purr, similar to house cats.