The extraordinary footage from Arizona exhibits how lion hunters and wildlife biologists usually work collectively to catch and collar mountain lions
The wildlife biologist seems to be up because the darted mountain lion jumps over his head. {Photograph} courtesy Travis Legler
Wildlife biologists receives a commission to work in shut quarters with the animals they research, however typically these critters get slightly too shut for consolation. Such was the case in January, when a biologist with the Arizona Game and Fish Department practically bought pounced on by a mountain lion after taking pictures the cat with a tranquilizer dart.
Travis Legler, the volunteer houndsman who was serving to the biologist that day, captured the entire episode on video and uploaded it to his YouTube channel that night, Jan. 12. It’s a nail-biter of a clip that exhibits the wildlife biologist standing his floor in a decent canyon as the massive feminine cougar runs circles round him. By the top of the video, it’s exhausting to say which is extra spectacular: the lion’s athleticism or the biologist’s lack of worry.
A component-time searching information and full-time canine coach, Legler often works with fish and recreation businesses in Utah and Arizona to assist them catch cougars and black bears for analysis. He tells Out of doors Life that the Jan. 12 encounter he recorded on video was one of many extra uncommon (and intense) encounters he’s ever been part of. At one level throughout the clip, you’ll be able to hear Legler roaring on the cougar from behind the digital camera because the cat tries climb out of the slot canyon. He did this to scare the cat, but in addition to save lots of his personal pores and skin.
“You possibly can’t see it within the video, however I used to be standing on a 2-foot by 2-foot ledge with a 150-foot cliff behind me,” says Legler, who operates Tmans Looking and lives close to the border of Arizona and Utah. “So, if the cat hit me, me and the cat have been each going off the cliff.”
Discovering a Cougar and Following It Down
Legler explains that Jan. 12 began out as simply one other coaching day. He hiked into Kaibab Nationwide Forest in Arizona with just a few hounds, and shortly sufficient they have been on the path of a mountain lion. They adopted the feminine lion right into a steep, rocky gorge, the place it climbed down into an excellent smaller slot canyon and settled in among the many rocks.
Later that morning, after he’d caught the cougar, Legler bought a message on his handheld GPS from a wildlife biologist who works with AZGFD. (Legler is on a listing of volunteer houndsmen within the Southwest, who assist wildlife biologists catch mountain lions to allow them to be fitted with GPS collars.)
“He requested me how I used to be doing as a result of he knew I used to be out that day,” Legler says. “And I instructed him ‘Good, I’ve already bought one caught.’ He requested if I’d thoughts if we went again and collared it and I stated no.”
By the point Legler and the biologist returned to the slot canyon the place Legler’s canines had trapped the cougar, the cat hadn’t budged. So, after Legler walked again to his truck to place his canines away — primarily to maintain them from hurting themselves — the 2 males climbed down into the slot canyon and bought into place.
“I may hear it, you realize, growling at me after I first bought there,” Legler says. “And as soon as he bought down in there the place he felt prefer it wasn’t going to go anyplace, he had me transfer over to the opposite facet [of the slot canyon] to the place I used to be standing after I filmed.”
Darting, Dodging, and Collaring the Cat
The wildlife biologist then shot the feminine mountain lion with a tranquilizer dart. However as a substitute of going proper to sleep, which Legler says normally occurs in these eventualities, the cat roared and bounded down from its perch because it tried to flee. (Legler prefaces this by explaining that the majority of his experiences have been with mountain lions which are treed and never cornered in a canyon.)
“Normally these medication [have] a reasonably good impact, and the best way have been arrange, we figured she would go to sleep there,” Legler says. “However she made up her personal thoughts for us and that every one modified.”
He explains that after the wildlife biologist had his shut brush with the mountain lion, the cat jumped down one other 50 to 60 ft, the place it lastly fell asleep on a decrease ledge. Legler then helped the biologist rappel down, the place he was capable of take some samples and get a collar on the cat. He gave the cat a reversal drug to wake it up, after which Legler roped him again as much as the canyon rim.
Legler says he’s stayed in contact with the wildlife biologist, who selected to not share his title or touch upon the video due to the politics surrounding mountain lion management in the West. This is similar motive why AZGFD requested Legler to drag the video from Instagram after he first shared it on the platform in January (and after it had already racked up practically half one million views.) It’s since been shared by just a few different accounts, though Legler provides that he wasn’t even planning to submit the video on social media at first.
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“I don’t normally submit [this stuff]. Typically I’ll ship these movies out to my associates, however I bought so many requests from individuals who stated I wanted to submit it as a result of it was the good factor they’ve ever seen,” Legler says. “And the biologist doesn’t have any drawback with [the video] in anyway. He felt that it truly confirmed a really optimistic mild on an interplay between a hunter, a biologist, and a mountain lion, and the way that may all happen.”
