Proceedings of the Ninth Mountain Lion Workshop - Carnivore ...

subadults, and kittens, the study phase and wolf use and density were not important
predictors of survival in our models. Model results indicate that survival of adult and
independent, pre-dispersal cougars was influenced by (1) sex – females had higher
survival rates than males; (2) age – females between 1 and 10 years of age had survival
>0.80, males 3–8 yrs. old had survival of 0.7–0.8; (3) road density during the cougar
hunting season – survival declined with an increasing density of km of road/km 2 during
the cougar hunting season (Dec–Feb); and (4) elevation – cougars had highest survival at
higher elevations. For kittens, results indicate that survival was influenced by (1) age –
survival increased rapidly and asymptotes around 0.90 between 0.6 to 0.7 years of age;
(2) season – survival was lower during winter; (3) elk calf biomass – survival increased
with increasing minimum estimates of calf biomass; and (4) adult male density – kitten
survival increased with adult male density (an index of male stability in our studies).
Many of the differences in reproduction and survival between the two study phases are
consistent with density-dependent influences. Although wolf use and wolf density were
not important predictors of survival, cougars responded to wolf presence through spatial
shifts which may influence intraspecific strife, reproduction, and possibly survival when
examined on a longer time frame than our study.
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