Predator vs prey animal pairs2/2/2024 ![]() ![]() ![]() The work received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation and Utah State University as part of Kohl’s doctoral research. The study was co-led by Kohl and Utah State University researcher Dan MacNulty, along with Toni Ruth of the Hornocker Wildlife Institute and Wildlife Conservation Society, Matt Metz of the University of Montana, and Dan Stahler, Doug Smith and P.J. ![]() (Photo courtesy of National Park Service) New research indicates that cougars are actually the main predator influencing the movement of elk across the winter range of northern Yellowstone National Park. “Elk were able to sidestep both cougars and wolves by selecting for areas outside these high-risk places and times by using the forested, rugged areas during daylight when cougars were resting, and the grassy, flat areas at night when wolves were snoozing.” “Cougars hunted mainly in forested, rugged areas at night, whereas wolves hunted mainly in grassy, flat areas during morning and at dusk,” said Kohl. “But Yellowstone is a predator-rich system, so what do you do in that situation where you can’t go anywhere else?”Īpparently, according to data collected by Kohl and his study co-authors, you move to new locations depending on the time of day. “When most people think about predators and prey, they think, when predators are here, the prey should go somewhere else this was the original ‘landscape of fear’ idea,” said Kohl, citing a phrase coined in an earlier study, based in Yellowstone National Park, that investigated this relationship. (Photo courtesy of Yellowstone Cougar Project/National Park Service)īefore this study, it was unclear how elk navigated the landscape, said Michel Kohl, lead author of the paper and an assistant professor in the UGA Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. Researchers found that cougars have more influence than wolves on the movement of elk across the winter range of northern Yellowstone National Park. ![]()
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