An ecotour company that operates in Yellowstone National Park has captured extremely rare footage of an active cougar.
“Low quality video but a high quality sighting!” Yellowstone Wolf Tracker boasted Sunday via Instagram. “Today many of us were graced with a rare sighting of a very elusive predator; the mountain lion!”
The footage, captured from a distance, briefly shows a large cougar, or mountain lion, gazing in one direction before walking lazily out of the frame.
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The park estimates the cougar population at between 34 and 42 animals, mostly in the northern range. Other cougars may enter the park seasonally. (Yellowstone National Park encompasses nearly 3,500 square miles.)
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The animals are considered phantom-like because they’re so rarely encountered.
Cougars prey mostly on deer and young elk, but also small mammals such as marmots.
According to the park’s website, bears and wolves sometimes displace cougars from their kills, and wolves sometimes kill adult cougars and cougar kittens.
The park states that “very few documented confrontations between cougars and humans have occurred in Yellowstone.”
–Cougar image is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons