Elbroch discovers condors drive cougars to kill more
Cougar biologist Mark Elbroch spent more than a year in South America's Patagonia region tracking down pumas and recording what they hunt and eat, riding on a horse for up to 21 hours at a time. In the course of his research, Elbroch noticed something odd: Patagonian pumas kill about 50 percent more animals than their North American counterparts and spend less time feeding on their hard-earned meals. But why?
According to a study Elbroch co-authored and which was published earlier this month in the journal PLoS One, the cougars abandon their kills due to harassment from Andean condors, a near-threatened scavenging bird, Elbroch told OurAmazingPlanet. This came as a surprise, however, since the condors are physically much smaller than these mountain lions, and don't directly threaten the big cats, he said.
"Mountain lions under the pressure of condors act like squirrels do under the pressure of owls," acting more skittish, Elbroch said.
