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

Her dad was a cougar hunter, so Evelyn Nelson grew up with a hands-on
understanding of nature’s food chain and the mountain lion’s place in it.
As superintendent of the Cle Elum-Roslyn School District, she wanted her
students to have the same kind of experience… It’s a unique amalgam of
students, scientists, and community volunteers working together in a
research and education project.
WildCat News published a story I wrote from the students’ point of view:
High school senior Rusty Skurski had been learning about the food chain
in the classroom. “But,” he said, “when I got to go out to a kill site and
found an elk carcass, it all started to make sense. Out in the field, you
have to search around and try to figure out what happened – what were the
movements of the cougar, and what was its reasoning?”
The Seattle Times has published two front-page articles about Project CAT. Sadly, the
first one was prompted by the untimely death of Rocky Spencer, but, in it they described,
in great detail, the cougar research he and Brian Kertson have been doing in Western
Washington.
Recently the Seattle Times published a front-page article about Project CATs startling
results:
…Studies such as (Ben) Maletzke’s question the traditional approach to
cougar management. Instead of reducing conflicts between cougars and
humans, heavy hunting seems to make the problems worse,” says Robert
Wielgus, director of Washington State University’s Large Carnivore
Conservation Laboratory…. Killing large numbers of cougars creates
social chaos…Trophy hunters often target adult males, who act as a
stabilizing force in cougar populations. These adults police large
territories and kill or drive out young males. With the grown-ups gone,
the ‘young hooligans’ run wild.”
Project CAT became nationally known when I published an article in Wildlife
Conservation Magazine. In the article, Gary Koehler explained Project CAT to a
national audience.
“Through Project CAT, students gain experience in science and civics.
They know what’s necessary to maintain both public safety and a healthy
population. The students are our colleagues in research, but more
importantly, they are the faces and voices of Project CAT. They are the
ones who present our findings to the community.”
The editor of Wildlife Conservation Magazine has said it is the magazine’s mission to
match biologists with writers so that research discoveries reach the general public.
Partnerships with writers give researchers a freedom they might not otherwise have, as it
gives them an opportunity to voice their thoughts and opinions beyond the findings of
their research. This may take the form of presenting new ideas whose research is on-
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