Many people believe the cats are opportunistic feeders; however, let's make sure we understand what that means. Data from several studies show that the cats' primary food is deer. In areas where the (deer) prey base cannot support them, they will "switch off" to other ungulates (elk, bighorn sheep, proghorn antelope) or small prey (as common sense would suggest). They have been known to eat coyotes, javelina, rabbits, porcupines, beaver, mice, marmots, racoons, birds, and even grasshoppers.
However, the larger the prey, the more food the cat gets as payback for the energy and risk he expended with the kill. Will a cat eat anything "not on the menu"? Of course, it will. Any animal becomes "opportunistic" if it becomes hungry enough, including humans.
Once the lion makes a kill, it will eat the heart and liver first, as these are foodstuffs with the highest nutritional content. The lion will then bury the kill with a loose cover of scrapings, leaves, etc, and return to the kill site until nearly everything is consumed or the food is spoiled. How many times it will come back is dependent upon the amount of food the kill yields and the temperateness of the climate where it occurred. (In colder climates, the food will stay fresh longer.) The longer the food will stay fresh, the more the cat will return to feed until the food is completely consumed.
How much does a cat eat? Estimates vary. A rough estimate is that single adult cat will take a deer every one to two weeks. A female with cubs will take a cat as often as every three days. A cat's feeding rate is driven by how hungry it is; and if the cat is feeding on small prey, it will feed a lot more often. Mountain lions in captivity will eat 3 to 12 pounds of meat a day.
Mountain lions are known for their stealth, speed, strength, and agility. While they are very fast, they are not long distance runners. In other words, they are sprinters. Because of this, they tend to use stealth and cover to gain an approach to within 50 feet of their prey. They then attack like lightning using high speed, leaps, or both.
An attack usually begins long before it is evident. On my first mountain lion expedition, we backtracked a cat we had collared up and over a mountain, down across a road, and up a slight incline to find tracks of a small herd of deer mixed with the snowy and frantic tracks from the cat who had unsuccessfully attacked them. She had crept, using spotty cover of small trees and bushes, for almost a quarter mile up a hill and across a road from the small covey of trees where she had first spotted them. And she did it so well the deer never knew she was there until it was almost too late. THAT was stealth!
The cat will attack from the rear or the side. The cat will grasp the animal's head and shoulders with its front paws, claws extended and kill the animal with a bite to the back of its neck. The cat's whiskers actually guide the animal to the vertebrae on the prey's neck where it inserts its large canine teeth, driving the vertebrae apart and severing the spinal chord. If this fails, the cat will grasp the animal's throat with its teeth and attempt to crush its windpipe to suffocate it.
Once the kill is made, the lions generally do not feed immediately. They will take a short break before hauling the kill away to somewhere it feels protected and then begin to feed. It is reported that the lions often haul the kill away to a different spot each time they eat; but that is not what typically has happened in the Idaho study. My understanding is that the kill sites have tended to remain in place once feeding began.
Click here to return to Cougar Facts!