[tracker beeping]
- Nobody knows anything about what the hell is going on
with mountain lions out here.
They don't.
Mountain lions are out here
and that's all that people know.
[sniffing]
[intriguing music]
They are so mysterious.
People don't see them.
They are like little cat yetis.
Okay, take away that cat yeti thing.
- WOMAN: Brilliant.
- BERT: Cat safety is our most important priority.
As the cat walks through here,
it's going to step here,
here,
and it's too far a reach to go over there,
so he's just going to go right here.
[snap]
And get caught in the snare.
[intriguing music]
♪ ♪
[snap]
[lion growls]
We have to be very careful.
You can see what we have here.
[music]
[cat hiss]
[intriguing music]
[air gun]
[cat hiss]
Time?
[intriguing music]
♪ ♪
That's good.
That's pretty snug.
[intriguing music]
Hey doc, take a look.
What do you think?
[indistinct whispering]
[intriguing music]
♪ ♪
- We've captured 25 adult and subadult mountain lions
over the last 10 years.
We've put GPS collars on,
and then we've also caught four kittens.
- Yeah, he's plenty big.
- DR. HARVESON: When a mountain lion is born, it will stay
with its mother and nurse for two months,
and then stay with its mother for another year or so
learning to hunt.
And then after a year-and-a-half to two-years-old,
the mother will leave them.
Then you have a subadult lion that has to find
its own territory.
The dispersing subadults that we've had, the've gone
very long distances.
We had one travel from the Davis Mountains
almost to Big Bend National Park.
The data from our collared adult mountain lions have
an average of about 150 square miles for their home range,
but we had up to a 400 square mile home range.
- Going in on a kill with the cat present,
I mean it's a little nerve racking.
You can't help but just feel the eyes on you.
So yeah when you're going in on those fresh kill sites knowing
that it's still there, that it stealthily took down this
full grown deer, and it's watching you just the same.
[intriguing music]
Yeah, my folks I think are more freaked out than I am
about anything.
But as they should be.
As parents should be.
[laughs]
Using these collars can find out what they're eating
and what they're doing out here.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Mountain lions are unregulated in terms of their harvest
in Texas.
They can be trapped, they can be shot,
there aren't any limits on the number that you can kill
or your methods of take.
With a sample size of 21 cats,
survival was about a 53% annual survival for the cats
that we had collared.
The biggest mystery to me is how this population continues to
persist in the Davis Mountains.
What is it, what's that mechanism that's keeping these
animals still here, this population still around?
Is it immigration from the south,
from Mexico and Big Bend National Park?
Is it immigration from the north?
Is it isolated populations of high surviving females?
Mountain lions symbolize mystery, they're mysterious,
they're elusive, they're secretive,
but they're amazing animals.
[dramatic music]
This population in west Texas has remained here for centuries.
Understanding how it's still here, making sure it
continues to still be here.
That's an important thing.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪