UPDATE

Only two months behind here. But I'm signing on to share more exciting news! Thanks to Title V/PPOHA's commitment to ocelot conservation TEN GPS collars will be arriving at the beginning of December! That's right, you heard it correctly! TEN COLLARS!

This will only be the second time that GPS collars have been used in ocelot research. We will be able to gain insight into how ocelots move across the landscape in ways we never have before.

So three cheers to the people who have made this possible!

And I wouldn't leave you without a photograph. We're rodent trapping again on Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge (gotta learn stuff about what ocelots eat), so here are some photos of us in the field.


Fulvous harvest mouse (Reithrodontomys fulvescens), 3 days old


On cold mornings, some of them need a little warming up, so they get a ride in the pocket


And then there are the other residents of the refuge. Diamond rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox)

More exciting news

Thanks to a new federal STEM grant provided through Title V/PPOHA here on the TAMUK campus, as well as a small grant from the Houston Safari Club, we will be ordering SEVEN GPS collars for use on bobcats and ocelots.

We are still working through some of the kinks for final approval to use the collars on ocelots, but we hope to have that squared away by trapping time this fall and winter. These GPS collars have been used successfully on bobcats for many years.

The quality and quantity of data that we can collect from GPS collars is astounding and this is going to truly provide important data for the conservation of endangered ocelot.

Ocelot Media Day

Last week state, federal and CKWRI biologists met to talk about how grants benefit non-game wildlife, such as the endangered ocelot.

The Corpus Christ Caller-Times reported on the meeting.
Corpus article

And Big Cat News duplicated the story.
Big Cat News article

Article update

Researchers observed South American margays mimicing the calls of their prey:
Margay mimic monkey calls

Ocelots are featured in an article in Texas Wildlife Association magazine (and me, too!)
TWA does ocelots

As soon as I figure out how to share the PDF of the TWA article, I will add it here.

Laguna Atascosa NWR

One of the last places you'll find the endangered ocelot. We spent 5 days there last week surveying the prey population. Here are a few choice photos from our trip.


Liomys irroratus Mexican spiny pocket mouse


Killdeer and her nest


A little biologist rumor. In all seriousness, following the speed limits here is very important. Road mortalities are one of the main causes of death for endangered ocelots.


Sigmodon hispidus Hispid cotton rat. This guy was barely weaned I would guess. Quite cute.

We were there for the rodents but you see lots of other cool things.

Bobwhite quail, female


Tarantula

Bunny Bonanza

What would you expect to find in massive numbers when visiting Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge? Well, mosquitos, yes. And there are plenty of them out right now. But there are also lots of bunnies! Sylvilagus floridanus The Eastern cottontail rabbit. They sure make evening or morning drives interesting. I think they enjoy watching us swerve. They always seem to wait until the last minute to decide which way to run off.

But it's good that they are so abundant. They are yummy to lots of predators, including ocelots. Lots of bunnies could mean the ocelots are fat and happy.

In previous posts I've talked about rodent trapping on the private ranch where my major research occurs. We've expanded that research to the Refuge. If we can provide scientific documentation to Mexico that there is a plentiful amount of prey here, then that puts us one step closer to translocation.

We are sampling 4 different sites, all of which are 1st priority translocation release sites. Three are in areas currently occupied by ocelots and one is in an area that is not currently occupied but was in the last 10 years. Our first sampling was last night/this morning as we caught the usual suspects: hispid cotton rats (Sigmodon hispidus) and Mexican spiny pocket mice (Liomys irroratus). We also captured one northern pygmy mouse (Baiomys taylori). These probably aren't high on the ocelots' favorite menu items (would you want to run a mile just for one chicken nugget?), but they'll definitely snack on one when the opportunity presents itself.

We've seen lots of other fun critters, too. Here's a short list:
Texas tortoise
Indigo snake
Texas horned lizard
Mexican ground squirrel
Plain chachalaca
White ibis

And one of the best things of all? Wireless internet! We can play outdoors in the mornings and evenings and then actually get some work done indoors between! Not that I wouldn't mind exploring the trails all day, but annual reports loom overhead!

Check out more information about the Refuge and endangered ocelots, turtles and falcons here: Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge

Here are some fun facts. See if you can find them on the refuge website.

When was the first confirmed report of an ocelots on the refuge?
When did extensive research on ocelots begin on the refuge?
Have there ever been jaguarundi on the refuge?

Answers tomorrow!

The danger of roads

Unfortunately, road mortality is one of the main causes of decline for ocelots in Texas.

Ocelot mortality

It's official

We are done with spring trapping. Temperatures are consistently above 90 degrees now, and it is just too warm for the animals. While trapping can be done safely in warm temps, there is no reason to take a chance on the animal's safety.

So now I can focus on other pressing issues. This weekend will be spring rodent trapping on my study site. Each season we conduct abundance surveys for prey species. This includes various species of mice, rats and squirrels. And the occasional cottontail rabbit. We place Sherman live traps in a transect (fancy word for line) along the conservation easements (the protected thick brush, or ocelot habitat) and check them for 4 consecutive days.

The drought last year really took a toll on the prey community, and trapping in January of this year was pretty meager. After all of our spring rains, and the currently lush conditions of the habitat, I expect trapping this weekend to be very fruitful. This could actually be one of the reasons for our low ocelot trapping success. If there is plenty to eat, what is the draw of a chicken in a trap? Unfortunately, there is no way to prove that.

Here are a few captures from past events.


Baiomys taylori or Northern Pygmy Mouse with a metal ear tag and a mark with a permanent marker. We give each animal an individually identifiable mark so we can calculate abundance. The metal ear tags should last between trapping sessions as well.


Spermophilus mexicanus, Mexican ground squirrel. NOTE: I am not holding this guy properly. Do not try this at home. Animals should be help by the "scruff". But this guy was trying to get away from me and I had a quick picture snapped.


This is me with Sigmodon hispidus, a Hispid Cotton Rat. He has two marks with a permanent marker. These marks will last within the trapping session, i.e. the 4 days of trapping. This is the technique we employed before using the metal ear tags. Cotton rats are one of the major prey items of many small to medium-sized predators in North American, including bobcats, coyotes, and of course, ocelots!

Become of a fan

If you are on Facebook, become a fan of the Friends of Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge page, Viva the Ocelot!

Viva the Ocelot!

They have great images of a female and her cub. Check it out and become a fan!

Trappng

Trapping has resumed on the ranch. So far no luck, but I'm feeling optimistic.

Watch this space for more news!

Ocelot news

A roadkill ocelot was found and collective in Arizona. No official records occur for ocelots in Arizona since 1964, though have been anecdotal reports over the years. See the story here:


Arizona Fish and Game - Ocelot

Video post

Here is a short video by Richard Moore talking about Rancho Caracol. This bird hunting ranch in northern Mexico, is the site of further research by biologists and students with the Feline Research Center. SCV is conducting her PhD work here, AC is lead researcher, and CS is also using data from the ranch as part of his PhD.

Richard Moore Nature

For more photos of the cat research and information about ranch, visit there website:
Rancho Caracol

Rancho Caracol graciously allowed me to visit in February of this year and assist SCV with her work. Here are a few photos from that amazing trip.

As I promised

A couple days ago, I said I would post a map pointing out how the ocelots and bobcats partition the habitat they share. So I played around in ArcMap today (love this program even though most of the time it makes you want to place sharp, hot things in your eyes) and made a very simplified map of the 4 collared cats on my research site. Female ~3-4 years adult ocelot in red, ~1.5 years adult female bobcat in pink, ~1.5 years adult male bobcat in green, and ~3 years adult bobcat in blue.

It's a little crude, but you can very easily see that the ocelot spends all of her time in the thick brush. That's what ocelots like. Very much. They prefer 95% canopy cover! And it's a mid- and low-story brush. Seriously, folks, you have to belly crawl through this if you want in there. And it's THORNscrub. It pokes, it scratches, it's fierce stuff. I've provided a couple photos of that, too.





But ocelots love it.

Bobcats not as much. They will definitely use it. You can see male YB1 uses part of the area that the same ocelot, Y14, uses. He particularly likes this old road that runs through the area. He walks up and down that scanning for yummy things to eat and getting photographed by our remote cameras.

The female bobcat, YB2, uses the other protected brush area, but she mainly uses the area around the intermittent ponds, which is much more open than the rest of the brush. She also uses LOTS of open area. All the white that I did drawn in and code as brush is pretty much open rangeland of grass and occasional brush or trees now and then. But pretty much wide open.

The other male bobcat, YB3, is very young, like YB2. So he has been all over the place. He doesn't go in the thich brush pretty much at all. And he likes to move around a lot. He's young, and he's overlapping another male bobcat, which is just a little older than him (but still a youn adult). So it won't be a surprise if one day he is gone. Headed off to find a permanent home range for himself with a pretty female bobcat and no bigger, better males to take her from him.

And this is all just preliminary with about 20 or so locations. This data will get even better, even more reliable once we get up to 40 locations or so. And imagine in a year?!

Cool stuff.

A little fun for the day

So I received an entry form for a new Sprint phone contest. They wanted a creative essay on what you could do fast. Here is my silliness:

Can you sedate an ocelot in 4 minutes? I can. Within in 30 minutes I can have that spotted feline radio-collared (she'll be the talk of the thornscrub forest with that sexy "necklace"), measurements taken (don't worry, we won't tell the boy ocelots her girth, weight or age), and samples taken (a girl's gotta protect her DNA, eh?). Lickety split this sleek pussy cat is curled up inside a killer crib (okay, so it's a pet carrier, don't tell her that) where she can sleep it off in a nice, quiet spot (get it, spots? Hee hee). So in the time it could take me to run a mile (maybe I could have done a 4 minute mile when I was 15!), I can cross another check mark off for conservation. This sweet, spotted ocelot's collar will tell us scientists lots of juicy info on her whereabouts, like where she likes to dine out and who she likes to dine with. Oh yeah, we know of her dirty secrets. And all that gossip will help us make management decisions for this beautiful, but very endangered wild cat. And it all started with 4 sleepy minutes and one tiny stick in the leg. Not bad. And don't worry, she won't remember us a bit as she streaks off into the brush with her new shiny collar.

And of course, I can't do all of that alone. Gotta credit AC for his work! Technically, I'm still sedating bobcats and raccoons. Two more successful bobcats and then I'm qualified to sedate ocelots. Safety first for the cats!

Sunshine go away

I never thought I would say those words! But unfortunately, the quickly approaching South Texas summer heat may hamper our trapping efforts. Traps are checked at sunrise and any captured animals worked up and released well before noon, but safety of the animals always comes first. So when temperatures rise about 90 degrees for a certain number of days....well, it's time to close the traps for good.

Luckily, we will be resuming trapping as soon as the heat releases its grip; sometime in September or October.

So everyone keep your fingers and whiskers crossed that we get at least another week or two in before it gets too warm.

And pray for rain, clouds and cool breezes.


Research associate, AC, measures the paw width of a male bobcat. Bobcats are sympatric carnivores to ocelots. This simply means that they occur in the same geographical areas, or even have overlapping home ranges, but do not interbreed. Next post: some preliminary home range graphics where you can see this overlap.

Getting started

So my goal today is to try and add more information to this blog. There is the obligatory bio about myself and my goals. And then, of course, more photos! Here is one of my favorites:



This is a male from the project in Mexico (part of SCV's PhD research). And he had the most amazing smell. I had forgotten about that ocelot musk smell. Well, it had been about 12 years since I'd been that close to one, to be fair. It's kind of a mild skunky smell, but not a bad smell. It's actually kind of nice. Eau de ocelot. Pretty darn cool.

And as odd as it sounds, even a few hours later, I could smell him on my sweatshirt and it just made me smile all over again.

Let's talk cats

I've created this blog to not only talk about my interests in wild cat research but to also share other ongoing research on cats from around the world. I'll include Notes from the Field where I'll give some insights into the current research in South Texas on endangered ocelots. Also Cat Clips, where I'll pass along interesting news clips about other species of wild cats. If you've ended up here as a reader, I hope you find the posts interesting, educational and above all, topics that pique your interest about wild cat conservation.

The photo above is of a male ocelot (Leopardus pardalis) being released in Tamaulipas, Mexico. This ocelot was trapped and fitted with a VHF radio-collar. Radio-tracking will allow researchers to estimate home ranges, habitat use and other important ecology about these secretive felines.