13 August 2004

Little cats and big cats

Forrest M. Mims III

Big cats are in the news these days.

Thousands of people fascinated by tigers are keeping them as pets.

Some have escaped and have had to be killed. Others have been kept in small apartments and cages completely unsuitable for such a large and potentially dangerous animal.

In July an escaped tiger owned by an actor who played Tarzan was killed by police after an unsuccessful attempt to tranquilize the animal.

Tigers are endangered animals. The Zoological Society of London reports that only 5,000 to 7,000 wild tigers remain.

There are apparently fewer wild tigers than tigers in zoos, circuses and kept as pets. According to the Animal Protection Institute, from 6,000 to 7,000 tigers are kept as pets in the US alone.

The mountain lion is the largest wild cat in the US. As people build more homes and cabins in formerly pristine forests, close encounters with these big cats have been increasing.

Sandia Mountain borders the Eastern side of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Years ago I was hiking up a gully on the mountain at dawn when I noticed a movement just ahead at the top of the gully. As I looked up, an adult mountain lion leapt straight down into the gully no more than 15 feet ahead of me.

The lion may not have seen me before it jumped, but it certainly did on the way down. After it landed, it looked directly at me for a fraction of a second before racing up the opposite side of the gully.

Not all encounters with wild lions are as benign, particularly when dogs and domestic cats are involved.

Mountain lions in Colorado have developed a taste for family pets, whose presence attract the big cats much closer to homes than otherwise.

Hikers with dogs have even been followed by mountain lions. A few hikers have been mauled or even killed by lions.

Texas has mountain lions. While camping in Big Bend, a rancher showed my son and me large lion prints along Tornillo Creek.

Even in captivity, big and small cats often retain their stalking and hunting instincts.

Our daughter Sarah took in a stray cat, Alex, when she was four and Alex was a baby kitten. Alex never received any formal training, but he became expert at catching mice and field rats and bringing them to us as presents.

Big cats, of course, prefer bigger prey.

Forrest M. Mims III and his science are featured online at http://www.forrestmims.org/.

This feature was originally published in Forrest Mims's weekly science column in the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise, Seguin, Texas. The column is written for a general audience.