November 2019 • Nebraskaland 39
The researchers get plenty of exercise examining
clusters, which by nature are often in extremely
rugged terrain. Game and Parks employee Lauren
Toivonen (right), who joined the project this year,
shows off the carefully created tracks on her GPS
unit after investigating a site in Dawes County.
Until researchers find evidence, they closely
examine each nook and cranny of an area 100
meters in diameter with a path spiraling from
the center of the cluster. While Toivonen's path
in the photo may look simple on the GPS unit, it
included a steep sandstone ridge on its east side
and a barbed-wire fence that was crossed eight
times – not to mention a large patch of poison
ivy. Studying mountain lions and their clusters
takes the researchers to some of the most remote,
beautiful, but difficult-to-access places in the Pine
Ridge in many kinds of weather.
While more than 75 percent of the prey
evidence found at the Nebraska cluster sites
have been of deer, the hair of which Maria
Baglieri is studying (above), occasionally
the monotony is broken by the discovery
of another species such as bighorn sheep
(opposite), as Linsey Blake and Baglieri are
examining. Despite traversing territory with
plentiful livestock, less than 1 percent of
the prey evidence discovered by Nebraska's
researchers have shown evidence of cougars
preying on cattle or other domesticated
animals.
