[Music]
[Music]
I’m gonna first start talking about my
cougar story in the December issue of
National Geographic this is a cave in
the Grove on outside of Jackson Wyoming
I put this camera trap up and then for
the next 11 months I got about a hundred
thousand pictures of a little ground
squirrel it took me a year to get a
picture of this female and her kitten
and they’re both study animals and it’s
absolutely fabulous but I was pulling my
hair out you know taking a year to do it
so we did camera trapping in certain
locations and other guaranteed locations
were kills mountain lion kills and this
females looking back at us and there she
is in the moonlight with some clouds
coming over it’s great when you have
clouds on a full moon because it really
lights up the sky but one of the
interesting things about this is
mountains is an animal that caches their
kills they bury them so other animals
can’t find them of course they stink so
you can find them but they don’t smell
when it’s 20 below zero and what
happened here was it snowed and then it
iced over so he had to dig a hole so he
could eat it’s pretty incredible
behavior there and that’s one thing
we’re trying to get on camera traps this
behavior but a lot of our time was spent
going out with the scientists well they
went to two fine cats didn’t collar them
and recover them change the batteries
and so we take dogs out or Boone Smith
does NatGeo channels big cat guy and
tree the cat and you can see he just got
darted cuz he’s not very happy about it
and then in boon situation he puts a
rope around the back leg and lowers him
down in South Dakota they let it fall
and put a net up unfortunately for these
guys that cat wasn’t drugged yet and the
other way that we do it when it there’s
a closure and you’re working with
kittens you use cage traps and within an
hour they were free and gone back with
mom and when they do captures they take
all the vital signs DNA put the collar
on and then here the kitten is learning
that mountain lions pull the hair off
and spit it out and that’s what she’s
learning to do one of the things about
mountain lions is they are not
endangered and it’s also legal Hunnam in
certain states this cat was killed in
South Dakota this one here is being
mounted in South Dakota also but one of
the most interesting aspects of this
story to me was going to a mountain lion
meeting in Montana
meeting the scientist that works with
the cats north of LA and telling him
wouldn’t it be great to get a picture of
a mountain lion with the Hollywood sign
because these cats are moving closer and
closer to urban areas so I set my camera
traps up but this is something you need
to scientifically figure out where this
cats going to be working with the
biologist we got a good collar on him
with the National Geographic expedition
council so we get coyotes deer and I got
another Bobcat
guys walking their dogs people but I
mean this is good because with that
collar we’re getting points every two
hours so I put a video camera developed
by the missions program and the remote
imaging unit downstairs I can’t thank
you guys enough for what you’ve done and
gonna change moving images for wildlife
with these HD video camera trap and
there we got it took 12 months but just
an incredible iconic picture but the
prize was still out there the mountain
lion with the Hollywood sign and there
is the prize
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
I’m gonna first start talking about my
cougar story in the December issue of
National Geographic this is a cave in
the Grove on outside of Jackson Wyoming
I put this camera trap up and then for
the next 11 months I got about a hundred
thousand pictures of a little ground
squirrel it took me a year to get a
picture of this female and her kitten
and they’re both study animals and it’s
absolutely fabulous but I was pulling my
hair out you know taking a year to do it
so we did camera trapping in certain
locations and other guaranteed locations
were kills mountain lion kills and this
females looking back at us and there she
is in the moonlight with some clouds
coming over it’s great when you have
clouds on a full moon because it really
lights up the sky but one of the
interesting things about this is
mountains is an animal that caches their
kills they bury them so other animals
can’t find them of course they stink so
you can find them but they don’t smell
when it’s 20 below zero and what
happened here was it snowed and then it
iced over so he had to dig a hole so he
could eat it’s pretty incredible
behavior there and that’s one thing
we’re trying to get on camera traps this
behavior but a lot of our time was spent
going out with the scientists well they
went to two fine cats didn’t collar them
and recover them change the batteries
and so we take dogs out or Boone Smith
does NatGeo channels big cat guy and
tree the cat and you can see he just got
darted cuz he’s not very happy about it
and then in boon situation he puts a
rope around the back leg and lowers him
down in South Dakota they let it fall
and put a net up unfortunately for these
guys that cat wasn’t drugged yet and the
other way that we do it when it there’s
a closure and you’re working with
kittens you use cage traps and within an
hour they were free and gone back with
mom and when they do captures they take
all the vital signs DNA put the collar
on and then here the kitten is learning
that mountain lions pull the hair off
and spit it out and that’s what she’s
learning to do one of the things about
mountain lions is they are not
endangered and it’s also legal Hunnam in
certain states this cat was killed in
South Dakota this one here is being
mounted in South Dakota also but one of
the most interesting aspects of this
story to me was going to a mountain lion
meeting in Montana
meeting the scientist that works with
the cats north of LA and telling him
wouldn’t it be great to get a picture of
a mountain lion with the Hollywood sign
because these cats are moving closer and
closer to urban areas so I set my camera
traps up but this is something you need
to scientifically figure out where this
cats going to be working with the
biologist we got a good collar on him
with the National Geographic expedition
council so we get coyotes deer and I got
another Bobcat
guys walking their dogs people but I
mean this is good because with that
collar we’re getting points every two
hours so I put a video camera developed
by the missions program and the remote
imaging unit downstairs I can’t thank
you guys enough for what you’ve done and
gonna change moving images for wildlife
with these HD video camera trap and
there we got it took 12 months but just
an incredible iconic picture but the
prize was still out there the mountain
lion with the Hollywood sign and there
is the prize
[Applause]
[Music]
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