Sponsored in cooperation with the Earthwatch Institute

Pocatello, Idaho

At sunrise in the dead of the Idaho winter, you’re bouncing along a rough mountain road in the Albion mountains of Cassia County in a four-wheel-drive, looking for mountain lion (Puma concolor) tracks. The 100-meter-high chunks of granite glisten white with their fresh snow in the early morning light. Then, suddenly, your driver, Dr. John Laundré, slams on the brakes and shouts, "There’s one!"

As the truck slides to a stop, you all pile out and look at fresh lion tracks. Now the work begins. Another truck pulls up with a local houndsman and his dogs. You grab some gear, and then it’s off through the woods. The hounds chorus as they follow the puma’s scent. After a zigzagging, breathless chase through the trees and up and down ridges and draws, you hear the dogs piercing the morning stillness with a triumphant cacophony. Treed! You press over the last ridge toward the Douglas fir. Up above, its head cradled in the crook of two branches, the mountain lion looks down at you. Instinctively, she assumes that some carnivore even greater than she has cornered her and has the same plans for her that she has had for so many mule deer. Laundré raises a rifle to his shoulder.

If only she knew how many deer she has left to look forward to. For the rifle is only a dart gun that will tranquilize her, so you may help her and her species. Once she is sedated, you help to bring her down, weigh and measure her, and attach a radio collar so she can be tracked for months to come. The tracking information will help wildlife managers, ranchers, and politicians develop sensible plans for keeping mountain lions alive and well in an increasingly fragmented world. As elsewhere, development has carved Idaho’s ecosystems into ever smaller fragments that are less able to sustain their native predators and prey. If puma populations are too compressed, they may suffer from inbreeding or heightened competition for prey. If carnivores like the puma disappear, then the entire food chain would be disrupted, and the region’s biodiversity would suffer. Laundré’s study helps document pumas’ predatory behavior and understand their survival strategies, and that is helping ease ranchers’ fears and safeguard the lions’ future. Cougars are shot regularly by ranchers as suspected livestock-killers and are all but extinct in the eastern U.S. except for a few dozen imperiled cats in Florida. Data from this project already have shown, however, that the lions prefer deer to cattle, even when cattle are easy to kill.

• 2 0 0 0 . T E A M S
IV: Jan 8-16 • V: Jan 22-30 • VI: Feb 5-13 • Other teams, call for details • Max team size : 8 •

• M E M B E R S ' . S H A R E . O F . C O S T S
US $1,445 • £900 • Aus$2,220 • Yen ¥169,600

• R E N D E Z V O U S . S I T E
Pocatello, Idaho

• V O L U N T E E R T A S K S

Your other task is to locate puma kill sites and collect bone samples to gauge the age, sex, and health of the prey. If you come in the summer, you’ll hike through the same rough mountain terrain, radio-tracking collared pumas and typing their winter kill sites by sizing trees and measuring plant density and topographic relief to determine what habitats attract pumas and their chief prey. Wildlife ecologist Laundré (Idaho State University), earned his doctorate researching coyote home ranges and has headed this project since 1990. Collaborator and computer modeler Dr. Joel Brown (University of Illinois at Chicago) may be present for some teams. Your work documenting the subtle impacts of habitat fragmentation on the cougar will help ensure that the cat will be around for generations to come. More information on Dr. Laundre's work can be found at www.oz.net/~helpcats/.

• F I E L D . C O N D I T I O N S
Teams may hike 8 (summer) to 16 (winter) kilometers per day—off trail. After that workout, you’ll drive back to the town of Malta and a welcome meal you help put together at the team’s ranch house. After a relaxing evening, you’ll curl up in your sleeping bag on a pad on the floor to rest your bones for another hike—unless you’ve got the night radio-tracking shift (summer).