The Cougar Fund

The Cougar Fund "Protecting America's Greatest Cat"
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Have you ever been trapped in an elevator with a generous perfume user?Habitat could have the same impact on a cougar's ...
06/20/2026

Have you ever been trapped in an elevator with a generous perfume user?
Habitat could have the same impact on a cougar's olfactory system if it were not for the Jacobson's organ. Located in the roof of the mouth, this specialized vomeronasal structure allows a cougar to turn up the volume on its already remarkable sense of smell.
By stopping and curling back its lips into what can only be described as a full body grin, a cougar performs the flehmen’s response. This directs scent molecules toward the Jacobson's organ, allowing the animal to gather additional information from the scents that matter most. Who was here? Food? Threat? Male or female? A mate? A competitor? How long ago did it pass through? Which direction was it traveling? Is it still nearby?
For us, these questions would seem impossible.
We experience scent very differently. We may notice the fragrance of wildflowers, the smell of trees after a gentle rain, decaying biomass, or the wake up call of smoke drifting through the air. Our responses are often tied to emotion, memory, pleasure, curiosity, or concern.
The evolutionary process is a source of awe. If a cougar, like humans, simply became desensitized to the environmental overload of scents over time, survival would be far more difficult. The ability to amplify and examine particularly important chemical messages is one of nature's elegant solutions.
To be able to ramp up that sense on demand is one of nature's wonders.
Thank you to our partners BWild for the stills from our collaborative project.


06/17/2026

Happy Wild Lives Wednesday!

Here's a reminder that even the small ones are adapted to the sometimes harsh life in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. A marten sighting is rare, so we wanted to give you some insight into their hidden lives. Martens are mostly carnivorous, with a diet primarily consisting of small ground mammals, and they share characteristics, from hunting style to agility, with our namesake mountain lion. They even have semi-retractable claws!

In these clips you can see this powerful hunter climb a tree, move with remarkable efficiency by bounding through their own prints or stepping into the tracks of larger animals to conserve energy, seem to float over snow thanks to snowshoe-like paws, and show off their hunting skills

Martens prefer mature coniferous and mixed wood forests with standing dead trees, hunting everywhere from the forest floor to the canopy to the subnivean zone beneath the snow in winter. Each layer offers cover from predators and onlookers (like us). But that reliance on old growth forests and deep snowpack also makes them vulnerable. Habitat loss, shrinking snowpack and rising temperatures are adding new pressure on top of long standing threats from trapping... The more we understand species like the marten, the better equipped we are to protect the wild places they call home.

06/14/2026

A graphic video allegedly showing the torture of a coyote in Wyoming has triggered an investigation and renewed national attention on wildlife cruelty in our state.

A Wyoming sportsman responded by saying, "This is not us." He is right. Most people who live here are not cruel and yet this continues.

Each time, we are told these incidents are isolated. Yet together they reveal a pattern. Cruelty is too often excused as tradition, buffered by culture, or protected by a fear of change greater than the fear of how these acts reflect on Wyoming.

Animals deserve better. Pain, fear, terror. What right does anyone have to deliberately inflict these on any living creature?

Until the voices with the power to stop it speak out, this is us. Wyoming will continue to be seen through the lens of cruelty rather than the beauty of its natural wonders.

Investigations are underway but we have a question. How can an animal that receives so little protection and respect in life expect accountability after it has been tortured to death?

06/12/2026

On National Cougar Day, we celebrate an animal most people will never see.

They move quietly through forests, deserts, mountains, and canyons, often remaining unseen even when they are nearby.

For many people, cougars are known only through photographs, videos, news stories, and policy decisions.

In those decisions, cougars appear as populations, management units, quotas, and statistics.

A cougar does not wake up as a population.

A mother does not raise kittens as a management unit.

A young cougar does not explore a canyon as a statistic.

Those are the terms of policy.

In fact a cougar is none of those things. Each is an individual.

A mother choosing where to hide her kittens.

An adventurous kitten heading off to investigate.

A sibling hanging back to watch.

A third pressing close for reassurance.

A young disperser heading out on the dangerous journey to establish his own territory.

An aging tom whose hierarchical superiority may soon be challenged.

A weakened aunt seemingly invited to share the cache of a related female.

Each with its own experiences, challenges, preferences, and personality.

The cougar lives only as itself.

Film excerpt from Kittens Gone Wild by Thomas D Mangelsen 1999

06/10/2026

Happy Wild Lives Wednesday! While these animals vary drastically in size and move in distinctly different ways, they all share something surprising: top speeds of around 30 to 40 miles per hour!

When you see a moose or grizzly bear hit full stride it may be hard to believe what you are seeing, but its a good reminder these animals are uniquely adapted for life in this ecosystem.

For prey species it means escape. For predators it means one chance at a meal. As predator and prey have evolved together on this shared landscape, nature has continuously selected for the most adapted individuals. Predators like the mountain lion need to conserve energy so they target sick and weak members of the herd, freeing up resources for the strongest and healthiest to thrive. Skills like speed and awareness are the result of thousands of years of pressure from both sides.

Learning and sharing facts about GYE wildlife is one of the easiest (and most fun) ways to get people thinking about the natural world around them. Tell someone something surprising today! And if you are feeling brave, leave your favorite GYE animal fact in the comments!

06/09/2026

We often move through a landscape as observers. We admire a mountain view, notice the colors of autumn leaves, or pause to appreciate the beauty of a forest trail. To a cougar, however, the landscape is not scenery; it is information. The forest is alive with signals. What appears to us as stillness is, for the cougar, a continuous process of gathering, interpreting, and responding to feedback.
Whiskers extend awareness into the space immediately around the animal, sensing contact and movement at the very edge of perception. Each sense engages the cougar in a remarkable conversation with its surroundings
A cougar's whiskers are far more than facial hair. These specialized sensory structures, called vibrissae, are rooted deep within the skin and connected to a dense network of nerves. Most people notice the long whiskers on the muzzle, but cougars also possess shorter whiskers above the eyes and on the backs of their forelegs, the carpal area we would call our wrist. Together, these sensory systems transform a landscape we experience as beautiful into one the cougar experiences as meaningful.
Whiskers allow our nocturnal hunter to feel its way through a world where vision becomes less useful—not because the cougar is blind in the dark, quite the opposite. Whiskers operate in a different sensory space. A small branch brushing the face, the edge of a narrow opening, grass bending against a whisker, the exact position of something just inches away. Sometimes there is no contact at all, only the faintest movement of air, a subtle disturbance that would go unnoticed by any other part of the body.
Every step is informed by countless pieces of information woven together into a seamless understanding of place. Survival depends not simply on strength or speed, but on the ability to perceive.
Whiskers are only the beginning. Join us as we continue our Nose to Tail series and go beneath the fur to explore the anatomy and physiology behind the remarkable adaptations that help cougars survive and thrive.

06/03/2026

Happy Wild Lives Wednesday! Today's compilation celebrates the hardworking mothers of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

The health of a wildlife population is often reflected in the health and success of its mothers. Black bear sows must nurse, shelter and protect their cubs while spending up to two years teaching them what is safe to eat and where to find it. Grizzly mothers do the same, keeping cubs close for up to three years and fiercely defending them against any threat. Does hide their fawns in tall grass in the early weeks of life, slipping away and returning only to nurse so as not to draw predators near. Elk cows leave the herd to give birth before making their way back, knowing that for a young calf, there is safety in numbers.

As you can see in these clips, the young also shadow their mothers closely, absorbing the learned behaviors, instincts and survival skills that will determine whether they thrive once they are independent.

We feel lucky to have caught these families on our trail cameras. As many of you know, it was the extended sighting of a mother mountain lion raising and nurturing her young kittens that inspired the founding of The Cougar Fund. Some things stay with you.

06/02/2026

Welcome to Cougar Month. This June, we’re going nose to tail to explore the incredible anatomy and physiology of one of North America’s most elusive predators.

Twice a week, we’ll take a closer look at how it is exquisitely tuned to gather, process, and respond to information in its environment in order to survive. Learn about sight, smell, hearing, powerful jaws, silent paws, flexible spines, balancing tails..and much more.

Some posts will be scientific.
Some surprising.
Some just plain fascinating.

Don't worry, your favorite Wild Life Wednesdays will still be headlining the middle of the week with all the other animals that cougars share their space with!

We are always grateful to David Neils for his amazing footage, his mentorship, and dear friendship.


05/27/2026

While spotting a mountain lion is rare occurrence, you may have passed a sign of cougar presence without ever knowing it: A scrape.

As face to face confrontation can be lethal for mountain lions, scrapes allow them to communicate critical information without physically interacting. Made by raking the hind feet across the ground to create a small mound of leaves, soil and twigs, they are almost always paired with urine or s**t carrying powerful pheromone signals. In a single visit to a scrape site, a mountain lion can communicate its identity, s*x, reproductive status and territorial boundaries to any other lion that passes through.

While they may look indiscriminate or random to us, scrapes are typically left at prominent locations, such as at trail junctions or along ridge lines, where lion territory borders are shared or overlapping. Males scrape far more frequently than females and will often revisit and refresh the same sites over time. Pioneering wildlife biologist Dr. Maurice Hornocker was among the first to recognize these disturbed patches of ground for what they really were, a discovery that transformed our understanding of how these solitary animals navigate their social world across vast territories.

Freedom to Roam. On this Memorial Day, we remember the men and women who gave their lives in service to others, and the ...
05/25/2026

Freedom to Roam. On this Memorial Day, we remember the men and women who gave their lives in service to others, and the families who carry that loss forward.

We are thankful that freedom extends beyond being able to gather, to speak or to choose.

There are quiet reminders that we are free when we walk beside rivers, wander through forests, climb mountains, gasp at an untrammeled vista, enjoy public lands or know that we share the natural world with our wildlife.

And it is in these places that reverence might overtake us because they are not guaranteed.

They are part of an inheritance shaped by sacrifice, responsibility, and care across generations of those who have served.

Today is for remembrance, and for gratitude. What special. freedom do you cherish and are thankful for today? Please share it in the comments.

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83001

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