MOUNTAIN LION TRACKS CONFIRMED AT CAMP MARANATHA

On my way home yesterday I was walking behind Douglas Fir Lodge (building #5) and I saw some strange tracks in the mud. I have been paying attention to tracks lately, because I want to collect plaster casts of various tracks for an exhibit somewhere here at the camp. I knew instantly that they were too large for coyote tracks and they didn't have the claw marks and oval shape that are characteristic of all canine tracks. They look like the Bobcat tracks I had seen in my book, and then it dawned on me- these are mountain lion tracks! It had never occurred to me that I might find Cougar tracks in the camp. I had been on the lookout for a good raccoon specimen or maybe even a coyote or bobcat, but I thought it was outside the realm of possibility that a mountain lion would come right down into the middle of camp.











Still convinced that I had mistakenly identified a dog track as that of a mountain lion I called the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and they sent over Kevin Brennan, who is a biologist who has studied mountain lions extensively in the San Jacinto Mountains. He instantly confirmed that they were mountain lion tracks, and his trained eye also found evidence of a mountain lion that was not fully grown traveling with the big tracks I found. It had been a mother with her kit!







It was an exciting discovery! Bowden took one of the plaster casts into preschool for show and tell today, and I will have plenty of casts for our display some day.