Tracking the puma…

As it is a very difficult issue to see mammals in the forest, we are always checking the trails for animal tracks. Usually you can find tracks of oposums, agutis, pacas, armadilos, pecaries or even ocelots. But a few month ago Wilo even found the track of a puma right in front of the new station’s house. First I had my doubts, but checking it in detail and comparing it with other tracks, I was also convinced that we found puma tracks.So we installed our wildlife camera next to the place where we found the tracks, but unfortunately we couldn’t film any big cat up to now.

On the pictures you can see the track compared to the size of Wilo’s Leatherman knife, which is 10 cm long (one side).

Yesterday I walked down to the river with our new intern and during our walk I explained to her that you have to be really lucky to see mammals, especially bigger ones in the wild. That was in the morning. In the afternoon I had to go to Las Tolas and on my way I was very lucky….I couldn’t really believe my eyes when I saw a puma crossing the road. It was late afternoon, and already dusky. Although it was just a short moment, but about 15 meters in front of my car, this big cat was unmistakable. The puma crossed the road from the right to the left. It came out of the forest, made three light paces and then vanished into the forest again. It was about the size of our biggest dog (Lhasa) and its trot was so typically catlike….

I stopped the car then and dared to have a look into the forest where it disappeared, but unfortunately it was already gone…

WHAT A LUCKY DAY!!

This blog post was written by Nicole