Flashing lights ward off livestock-hunting pumas in northern Chile

by John C. Cannon on 7 January 2019

A new paper reports that Foxlights, a brand of portable, intermittently flashing lights, kept pumas away from herds of alpacas and llamas during a recent calving season in northern Chile.

Herds without the lights nearby lost seven animals during the four-month study period.

The research used a “crossover” design, in which the herds without the lights at the beginning of the experiment had them installed halfway through, removing the possibility that the herds were protected by their locations and not the lights themselves.

Pulsating lights placed around llama and alpaca herds warded off puma attacks during a recent experiment in Chile, suggesting the method might help avert conflict between herders and dwindling populations of the predator.

“The implications are huge,” Omar Ohrens, a postdoctoral scholar in environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and lead author of a study on the findings, said in an interview.

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Pumas found to exhibit behaviors like social animals

Findings could raise questions about all solitary carnivores

Date: October 12, 2017

Source: Panthera

Summary:

Pumas, long known as solitary carnivores, are more social than previously thought, according to a new study. The findings provide the first evidence of complex social strategies in any solitary carnivore -- and may have implications for multiple species, including other wild cats around the world.

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How humans threaten pumas just by being nearby

February 5, 2016 by Justine Smith, University Of California, Santa Cruz, The Conversation

You are wandering in the forest where you live, thinking about what you are going to have for dinner. Among the familiar calls of chickadees, you hear a foreign sound. You crouch in hiding, frightened for yourself and your family. Not until nightfall does the noise abate, allowing you to move again under the cloak of darkness. Soon you learn that the sounds come from unfamiliar beings taking over your homeland. You learn to live in hiding, believing that as soon as you let your guard down you may pay the ultimate price.

This is not the premise of a zombie apocalypse movie. It is the story of human expansion into wild places, where the wildlife that coexists with us often lives in chronic fear of humans.

Disturbance by humans changes the behavior of animals near towns, along roads and in areas that we use for mining, energy development and recreation. Although conservationists are starting to consider how the presence of humans affects the behavior of some species, they rarely analyze how these changes in animals' behavior affects entire ecosystems. In my research examining pumas, or mountain lions, in California, I've found that our presence alters how they hunt for deer, which can have a significant effect on the ecosystem overall.

Fear factor

Fear is a powerful force in ecosystems. For decades, ecologists have acknowledged that fear can dictate when, where, and what animals eat, what habitats they use and how they communicate with one another. These behavioral changes in animals are ecologically important because they can change interactions among species. Although many animals are known to respond fearfully to their predators, we are only beginning to understand how humans elicit the same responses in wildlife.

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Female pumas kill more, eat less when humans are near

Date:

February 13, 2015

Source:

University of California - Santa Cruz

Summary:

Female pumas kill more prey but consume less when their territories bump into human development, researchers report in a new study based on monitoring more than two dozen pumas in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

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