Mountain lions caught on camera at Stanford’s Jasper Ridge

Infrared cameras capture mountain lions out and about in the nighttime; with the top predator eating deer, the local ecosystem is intact.

The students were part of the Rising Environmental Leaders Network, a pilot project of Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment designed to give postdoctoral scholars and graduate students an opportunity to participate in a real-world consulting experience. The project was modeled after the Woods Institute’s Leopold Leadership Program. Nicole Ardoin , a member of the Jasper Ridge advisory committee, served as the faculty leader.

"This was a test case – an opportunity to engage faculty, postdocs and graduate students in project-based learning with a risk assessment/management component," said Ardoin, an assistant professor of education and center fellow at the Woods Institute.

The consulting team consisted of five students from different academic disciplines: graduate student Lena Perkins (mechanical engineering) and postdocs Kye Epps (soil science), Steve Litvin (marine ecology), Scott Loarie (landscape ecology) and Mike Papenfus (economics). The students were asked to assess the risk of a human-lion encounter in Jasper Ridge and to explore new opportunities for mountain lion research and conservation in and around the preserve.

In July 2011, after analyzing the photographic data and conferring with experts, the student team submitted its findings and recommendations to the Jasper Ridge advisory council. The report concluded that mountain lions are probably roaming the preserve about 24 percent of the time, but that "there are likely at most only one male, one female and possibly several cubs whose territory includes the preserve."

An adult male lion can weigh 200 pounds and stretch 9 feet from the nose to the tip of the tail. Despite the mountain lions’ size and remarkable hunting prowess, humans have little to fear: "Based on historical statewide data, the annual risk of being attacked by a mountain lion in Jasper Ridge is 1 in 10 million," the authors wrote.

"We humans present a greater risk to mountain lions than mountain lions present to us," added Epps, a co-author of the report, which is now available online.

A longer feature on the wildlife camera project at Jasper Ridge will appear in the November issue of Stanford magazine.

Mark Shwartz is /energy writer at the Precourt Institute for Energy.

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Mark Shwartz, Precourt Institute for Energy: (650) 723-9296, mshwartz [a] stanford (p) edu