I love drawing big cats; the face is so raw and exotic. Lions are distinctive animals; the African Lion is at once the same and very different from the North American Mountain Lion.
The Mountain Lion is one big beautiful cat, they are also known as Cougars or Pumas. This is our lion of the North Americas. The male mountain lion needs about 100 square miles of territory to hunt. An adult Mountain Lion eats about 50 deer a year. An African Lion also covers a territory of 100 square miles; however, it is mainly the female lion that does the hunting.
African Lions are very unique from all other big cats in that they live in a pride and are family oriented where as other big cats are mostly solitary except for mating and rearing the young.
There is no inbreeding in the pride whereas with Cougars the inbreeding does occur. The African lioness will leave the pride for up to thirty months to care for her young male offspring and to protect him from the older males in the pride. All of the female lions in pride are related whereas the young males eventually leave the pride to start their own. Mountain Lion Moms teach the cubs to stalk and kill deer, not rabbits, elk, and not humans.
Cats hunt by stealth. Spotting a likely meal, they crouch down and slowly, silently get as close as possible before the final run for their prey. Mountain lions watch their prey for about a half an hour and usually attack from behind and by surprise; the African Lion works in teams to surround, separate, and charge. The African Lion’s roar can be heard up to five miles away, their leaps can reach over thirty feet, and their speed is up to fifty miles per hour so their diet consists of pretty much anything they choose. Good thing we don’t have these big cats in our mountains; our Cougar is enough to worry about.
In the last seventy years, the African Lion population has decreased fifty percent. They are now only found in sub-Saharan Africa with a few Asian Lions found in India. The North American Mountain Lion is also endangered as they have been heavily hunted in the eastern U.S. where their numbers have greatly diminished and the Santa Ana Mountain Lions of California are in serious trouble because area development has isolated them from other populations and they are facing extinction.
What are some of the threats facing mountain lions? Mountain lions are exhibiting the negative effects of inbreeding over generations the result of not being able to spread out in a decent range of territory. With all the building of freeways, roads, and housing into the foothills makes their habitat smaller and difficult for this shy animal to roam and hunt wild animals. This puts humans in a closer proximity, remember we are the intruders not them.
It is important to remember that they are big, BIG cats. They appear to be curious about humans and follow us around, from a safe distance however attacks are very rare. When hiking and biking in the foothills and close to their habitat, be aware that you could come in contact with a Mountain lion and try to remember they are not used to their prey fighting back. So, fight back — but don't try to run away because that triggers the predator instinct.
