 |
Food Habits | |
| Distribution
& range
Author: Jason Pautz Site
created by Richard Phillips
|
The main items in the diet of the mountain lion are mule
deer and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). A 2.5 year study on cougar
food habits done by (Ackerman et al. 1984:150) found that mule deer accounted for 88% of
the kills examined and elk 4%. In Texas the mountain lions diet is much the same. An
analyses of stomachs reveled that in the southwest, the mule deer accounted for 54% of the
total food (by frequency of occurrence); white-tailed deer, 28% porcupines, 5.8%;
cottontails, 3.9%; jackrabbits, 2%; domestic cows, 1.6%; miscellaneous (including sheep,
goats, skunks, foxes, coyotes, prairie dogs, and grasses), 4.7% (Davis and Schmidly 256).
In years that the deer population is low or there is a shortage of food availability,
cougars will resort to cannibalism. It was reported by Ackerman et al. (1984) that there
were three instances of cannibalism in the study done on cougar food habits. A yearling
cougar was killed, eaten and buried by another cougar, believed to be a male, and two cubs
were eaten by another cougar. |