Carnivores

Materials:
-Mountain Lion Skull, Fur, Tracks
-Wolf Skull, Fur, Tracks
-Wolverine Skull, Lifesize replica, Tracks
Up here I have three carnivores/predators that live in these mountains.
First we have the largest cat species in the US, the mountain lion, cougar, puma, catamount.
Mountain Lion- Mountain lions have the largest range of any land mammal in the world, from Canada to
the tip of Argentina. Mountain lions are distinctive, with their long, lean bodies and a ropey tail. Check
out these teeth. What do you think that mountain lions eat? Cats are completely carnivorous, unlike
wolves or wolverines that supplement their diets with plants and berries. Puma eat mostly deer and elk,
but will also eat fish, raccoon, sandhill cranes, and other smaller prey. Check out this large ridge here.
This is the sagittal crest. Animals that have a large crest are able to crush bones with their jaws, i.e.
hyenas. They have excellent hearing, check out these auditory bullae. Mountain lions have 2-3 cubs in
late spring, early summer. The cubs are born with spots and live with their moms for 1-2 years.
Mountain lions have large home ranges. Males have larger ranges that usually encompass 2-3 females
ranges. Mountain lion attacks do happen rarely, but in general mountain lions are much more scared of
you than you are of them. Chances are they see you but you will never see them. They are crepuscular,
active mainly at dusk and dawn. Like your housecat, if theyre not eating or traveling, they are sleeping.

WolverineThe wolverine is the largest member of the weasel family. Other members of this family are skunks,
badgers, and martens. The wolverine is also known as the skunk bear because like skunks they produce
a stink to mark their territory.
Characteristics:
(Wolverine cut-out): Wolverines are about 34-42 in long with a 7-10in tail. They weigh about 15-35
pounds. They are most commonly confused with badgers (badger and wolverine photo). However,
badgers and much smaller and squatter than wolverines. Their fur is greyer than wolverine and have
white on their face. Wolverines have a dark cinnamon brown (almost black) pelt with a yellowish stripe
from shoulder to tail. It looks like they have a saddle on. Their fur is dense and long and resists water
which makes it easy for them to withstand the cold environments it inhabits. If you look at this particular
wolverine, you can see he has pretty big feet compared to its size. Have any of you ever snow-shoed
before? Wolverines have built in snow-shoes which help them travel incredibly far distances over snow. I
have a pair of the wolverine tracks here if youd like to compare your hand to the size of a wolverines
paw. Pass around wolverine tracks. They can travel 40 miles a day and this is climbing up steep
mountains like the Sawtooths. One wolverine in Yellowstone was tracked traveling 500 miles in 42 days.
Wolverine will travel day and night all year long.
(Wolverine skull) Take a look at this skull. What do you think wolverines eat? Look at those teeth? What
are those teeth used for? Thats right: wolverines are meat-eaters. They have several skull adaptations
that allow them to eat meat. The lower jaw is more tightly bound to the skull than most mammals. The
bone would have to break for the jaw to dislocate. This allows wolverines to crush bones and frozen

carcasses. Notice this saggittal crest. How does it compare to the mountain lion? This allows wolverines
to extract more nourishment from a single carcass than most animals. Wolverines are primarily
scavengers. What do you think this means? Although they will also kill animals for food if they need to.
Wolverines have been recorded to eat almost any animal they can find, squirrels, porcupines, beaver, deer,
caribou, and even moose! Thats right, wolverines have been recorded taking down a moose, which is
20x the size of a wolverine. That is like if your house cat could kill a deer! Although they mostly eat
meat, wolverines are actually omnivores. What does that mean? Yes they eat plants and animals. So
wolverines will eat berries and other plants. The wolverine has an awesome sense of smell. They can
smell food buried 20 feet under the snow!
Behavior: Wolverines are solitary creatures similar to mountain lions with separate territories. Denning:
Wolverine breeding happens in September and October but females do not give birth to kits until
February and March. Females look for den sites that have a persistent snow layer on top of the den. This
means that there is at least 4 feet of snow above the site until late April. This snow protects kits from
predators and from harsh environmental conditions. If the snow melts too quickly, mother wolverines
will move her kits to another den site. This move can be stressful for kits and because wolverine only
give birth to 2-3 kits every other year, it is important to raise kits in one den to increase populations. As
you may have guessed, because of warming temperatures, finding a persistent snow layer is becoming
harder and harder. If the areas of persistent snow layer continue to shrink, the corridors in which
wolverine travel to establish new territories will no longer exist. As you may of guessed, this makes the
Sawtooths an ideal place for wolverines to live. We still have 5 feet of snow in some high elevation areas
as of today. This is another important reason why we need to protect this special area.
Wolf-And finally we have our grey wolf. Canis lupus. The grey wolf was reintroduced into the
Sawtooths around 1996. We have at least 2 established packs between here and Ketchum. Wolves travel
in packs of 5-11 rather than being solitary like our mountain lion and wolverine. Very territorial, scent
and scat markings, as well as howling. They eat large deer and elk and moose. Wolves like your dog have
a strong sense of smell. They are scared of humans so if they smell you, its likely that you wont see a
wolf. Average litter size is 5-6 pups.
So why do you think predators are important for our landscape? Predators eat herbivores like elk and deer
and control their populations. If there are too many elk and deer our plants get overbrowsed. When their
populations are controlled our plants are able to grow better.