Findings from the new paper provide some answers:
- Researchers investigated 3,929 potential wolf and cougar kill sites: 852 were wolf feeding events, and 520 were cougar feeding events.
- Wolves made 716 kills and scavenged 136 times, primarily on elk (542), bison (201) and deer (90).
- Cougars made 513 kills and scavenged seven times, mainly on elk (272) and deer (220).
- Comparing data from 1998–2005 and 2016–2024 revealed major shifts:
- For wolves, bison increased from 1% to 10%, and elk declined from 95% to 63%.
- For cougars, elk dropped from 80% to 52%, and deer increased from 15% to 42%.
These kill site investigations were then used to train machine learning models that used GPS data to predict wolf and cougar kill sites. This allowed researchers to pair all wolf and cougar movements with probable kill sites and identify the drivers of their interactions. They found wolf-cougar interactions were highly asymmetric: 42% occurred at predicted sites where cougars killed prey, and only one happened at a site where a wolf killed prey.
The researchers documented 12 adult cougar deaths from 2016–24, two of which were caused by wolves. In both events, no escape terrain was available, and the wolves didn’t consume the cougars but ate the elk the cats had killed. They recorded 90 wolf deaths during the same period, none of which were attributed to cougars. Most were due to natural causes or human actions.
A good lion hunting story was a fun read. E. Donnall Thomas, Jr. was about the best at it that I have seen in the current era. He probably has aged out of it by now.