In the parts of Western United States cougar and wolf ranges increasingly overlap, writes member Sean Nealon. Despite the shared territory the two species have very limited aggression towards one another. On rare occasions wolves were observed killing cougars, as some researchers discover, but the inverse wasn’t true. While wolves have been taking over prey that cougars have killed, the cougars try to reduce the risk of these encounters but shifting their diet towards smaller animals in the National Park. The smaller prey can be consumed more quickly and even abandoned before the wolves arrive; not to mention staying clear of where wolf territory was. This curious behavior stems from avoidance rather than seeking dominance and this “uneasy” coexistence between the two species stems from more variance in prey types and if the cougar has an easy escape route. Find out more about the interactions of these two predators in Yellow with the writing of Nealon.
Photo: Doug Smith via Wikimedia Commons
