Unusual Mountain Lion Behavior
Eye-Opening Incident
I once received a call from a frantic woman who had just watched a mountain lion jump over a five-foot stock fence with the lifeless body of one of her full-grown sheep in its mouth. It was the third sheep she had lost during the preceding 10 days, the first two having simply disappeared from her sheep pens. Her small ranch was nestled among the Sierra Nevada foothills near the town of Paradise, California.
When I arrived with a hunter friend of mine, we could easily confirm from tracks in the sheep pens that the culprit was indeed a large mountain lion. We could see where the lion had jumped over the fence with the sheep and left a clear trail through lush spring grass, up the oak-studded hillside behind the ranch. Soon we were beyond the fence and on the lion’s trail.
We had not gone far when we spotted something strange up the hill ahead of us, what appeared to be three large mounds of grass. Then, suddenly, we spotted the lion near the mounds. It had apparently been lying down in the grass. It leaped up and bounded up the hillside away from us, its large tail swishing from side to side.
We continued to the grass mounds and determined that each mound concealed the body of a lion-killed sheep. I was surprised. I had seen dozens of lion kills, most of which were skillfully concealed with leaves, twigs and grass, whatever natural materials were available at the site. But never had I seen anything like the huge mounds of grass over the dead sheep that we found in this case. All of this served to remind me that we never really know what to expect from mountain lions or any other wild animals. They’re all different, like people, and their behavior varies widely.
Below, you will see a photo I took of the concealed body of a lion-killed 125 lb. Great Dane dog. It was so skillfully concealed that I nearly tripped over it. I included this photo to illustrate the fact that the behavior of mountain lions often varies greatly from animal to animal.