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S44E2: WILLOW: Diary of a Mountain Lion | Clip

Mountain Lion vs. Elk: Rare Hunt Caught on Camera

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Mountain lions risk everything to hunt elk, prey more than twice their size. After ten years of monitoring mountain lions in Montana, this crew has captured this behavior on camera only four times.

TRANSCRIPT

Mountain lions are incredibly secretive.

They move through the landscape generally at a walk, and they move really quietly through the forests.

And they can freeze at any point.

And then they'll get really, really close to their prey and then close that distance with a burst of speed.

- I'd say elk are one of the more spectacular animals out there.

They're highly social and so fast and strong.

And their bugles in the fall are one of the most haunting sounds you'll ever hear.

(elk squeaking) It's always been amazing to me that mountain lions not only are capable of killing elk, but that they do so regularly.

There's a fair bit of risk to a lion in going after prey that big and powerful, and you'd think that they would just stick to smaller deer.

But adult lions in their prime seem to have no problem killing elk, even bull elk, and that's a lot of meat, especially if you're feeding dependent young.

- We have hundreds of cameras on the landscape that have been collecting imagery for 10 years.

We've caught mountain lions hunting four times.

(elk squeaking)