Sebastian 'Seabass' Kennerknecht's Blog

Captive Arabian Leopard - Copyright: Damien Egan

As all of you know, I am completely fascinated, obsessed, and intrigued by all species of wild cats. Is it at all obvious? —

So I am extremely excited to report that I will soon head to Yemen to photograph (well maybe I should say try to photograph) wild Arabian Leopards. There are probably less than 100 wild Arabian Leopards left in all of the Arabian Peninsula, making it incredible important to increase the publicity of the plight of this amazing animal.

I’ll be working with good friend David Stanton from the Foundation for the Protection of the Arabian Leopard in Yemen to capture pictures of wild Arabian Leopards there along with images that illustrate their threats including the hunting of their prey, habitat degradation, and direct persecution along with photographs that demonstrate the conservation efforts currently in place there.

This assignment will partially be funded by the foundation, which at the same time will be working on the the establishment of a protected area. David is currently raising funds that will allow for a former leopard trapper to determine if Arabian Leopards exist in the north-western part of Yemen. If you can at all contribute, you will play a tremendous part in the establishment of an international protected area. To donate and find out all the details please visit the ‘Nightwatch – Catching Arabian Leopards with Camera Traps’ project on kickstarter at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2001600289/nightwatch-catching-arabian-leopards-with-camera-t

Need another incentive to donate? Well, I’ll make it easy on you. Since this project is extremely close to my heart I am offering a 40% discount on any product from my site www.pumapix.com, if you donate $50 or more to the kickstarter project. To receive your discount: forward me a copy of your donation receipt. Next, add any product(s) featured on pumapix.com to your cart and go through the normal ordering process. You can choose to pay with Paypal (if you select this option I will automatically refund 40% of your total order amount via Paypal). Otherwise, you can send a check for the order amount minus 40% to: Sebastian Kennerknecht, 1815 Katrina Court, Santa Cruz, CA 95062.  Alternatively, you can write to me and we can handle the whole transaction via email. This discount will end when the fund raising on kickstarter finishes on September 30th, 2011.

Of course if you feel strongly enough about this project we would more than appreciate you passing this information on (including discount offer) to anyone in your network. Thank you so much for your support!

Like most other felines, pumas live a rather solitary life. The only prolonged periods of time multiple animals spend time together is the 15 month period (on average) cubs spend with their mother.Though undoubtedly there are instances where cougars run into each other (like at a kill, for example when these two females with cubs met) but those encounters seem to be avoided by communication through various olfactory, visual, and auditory signs. Those same signs however can also be clues left by a female to signal a male she is sexually receptive. Researchers believe that urine marks and vocalizing are the primary ways a female advertises her ‘availability’. This vocalization is what is referred to as caterwauling and it is quite an impressive sound. Have a listen:

Audio of Female Puma in Heat

That would get my attention as well, though I wouldn’t want to necessarily go towards the sound.

Female mountain lions have an estrus of four to twelve days with an average of seven to eight days (data from captive studies). This is a rather short period of time for a male to find a female when you occupy as large of home ranges as they do, so it makes sense to create an obvious ‘hey, I am right here!’ kind of signal. Once they do find each other a breeding pair will stay together for one to sixteen days with one to four days being most typical. After the business is done the male will leave again (I know, I know, typical male behavior….).

So, is this meet up of two mountain lions a mating pair in the pictures below. The mountain lion front and center is our resident female, Artemis (named so after the Greek goddess of the hunt, based on her forehead mark resembling Artemis’s bow — can you tell my girlfriend came up with that one??) but if you look carefully on the right there is another puma, a rather large puma, sitting off to the side.

Mountain Lions in Aptos, California Taken: July 13th, 2011 @ 5:34pm

Mountain Lion Pair in Aptos, California

Mountain Lion Pair in Aptos, California

Is it a male? What do you think? If it is indeed a male and breeding was successful then we may have kittens starting around about October 15th of this year….time will tell!

Bibliography:

Ross, P.I. and M.G. Jalkotzy. 1992. Characteristics of a hunted population of cougars in southwestern Alberta. Journal of Wildlife Managment. 56:417-426

Mehrer, C.F. 1975. Some aspects of reproduction in captive mountain lions Felis concolor, bobcats Lynx rufus, and lynx Lynx canadensis. Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Dakote, Grand Forks.

Rabb, G.B. 1959. Reproductive and vocal behavior in captive mountain lions.

Seidensticker, J.C., M.G. Hornocker, W.V. Wiles, and J.P. Messick. 1973. Mountain Lion social organization in the Idaho Primitive Area. Wildlife Monogram 35: 1-60

Audio Courtesy of Felidae Conservation Fund.

Camera Trap Set under Rock Overhang - Copyright: Chris Wemmer

Those of you interested in camera traps all have visited or should immediately go to Coder’s Camera Trapping Blog which is written by Chris Wemmer, better known as the Codger or simply Codg. Every year Codg teaches a workshop at the San Francisco State University Sierra Nevada Field Campus about everything having to do about camera trapping wildlife including the history of camera trapping, camera trap sets (what they are and what makes a good set a good set), using attractants, doing biological surveys using camera traps, building your own homebrews, and he even discusses animal psychology in regards to camera traps. How cool is that ?!?!

If you have the smallest interest in using camera traps to photograph wildlife you simply need to take this class!

Besides an immense amount of useful camera trapping knowledge, this workshop taught me some very very important lessons including:

- I need to become a far better naturalist. This is the key to all nature photography success. Chris was a Smithsonian scientist for decades, leading many exciting adventures, but most importantly he was and most definitely still is one of the most knowledgeable naturalists I have ever met. (He would never admit this of course, but trust me, its amazing all the things he knows!)

- I need to experiment more. Placing the camera in ‘obscure’ places seemed to become the theme for our workshop and it was really exciting to do so. Not only are the perspectives unique but the potential for interesting pictures is also quite high.

- oh yeah, the final lesson is to not use credit cards (still good on that account). That’s right you will not only get camera trap lessons but life lessons!

The whole experience is a blast. We had a great group of people participating in the class, people coming from all parts of life including Carl, a photographer who’s career spanned taking picture in the Vietnam War to being the director of photography at the Smithsonian (his Smithsonian photography focused on natural history as well as cultural images). Lissa, is a graduate student at SFSU using camera traps for her thesis (crazy cool, I know), and Audrey who recently graduated from SFSU is getting a lot of field and lab experience before applying to grad schools (her main interest are Coyotes so if you hear of any cool studies with these canines please let me know and I’ll pass it on to her). We even had people from past years show up, including Bill, Sean, and Ken (Ken writes another great blog, which you also need to check out), so you can see that once you take the class you are hooked!

Here are some pictures from the workshop taken by the other participants during the short span of the week we were in the Sierras. To see the images the cameras took that we placed there you will need to check Codger’s blog in about a month (I personally can’t wait!)

The Camera Trapping Gang - Copyright: Chris Wemmer

Codg showing us how to make a make-shift post for your camera trap - Copyright: Lissa

Ken making set in tree trunk, Carl is enjoying the view - Copyright: Lissa

The crazy 'obscure views' we hope to get in a month - Copyright: Lissa, a self portrait here

Checking Camera Trap Images back at the Campus - Copyright: Lissa

Fred - Codg's awesome dog - Copyright: Chris Wemmer

Enough said, time for you to head over the Codg’s blog and get fascinatingly lost in camera trapping stories. Thanks to all for making the whole week a blast!