Okay look, big cat conservation still keeps me awake way past when I should be sleeping, especially on nights like tonight when it’s 18°F outside my apartment window in Fort Collins and the wind’s rattling the cheap single-pane glass like it’s personally offended.
I’m not some polished wildlife blogger with perfect drone footage and sponsored Patagonia gear. I’m just a guy who got way too emotionally invested after one random weekend shadowing a puma research crew last August, and now I can’t unsee how fucking hard these people work to keep big cats from blinking out.
The Day I Realized Big Cat Conservation Isn’t Glamorous
Picture this: me, already dehydrated, following three biologists up a scree slope above Estes Park because “the signal’s stronger up here.” Four hours of hiking. Gnats in my eyes. My cheap Walmart hiking boots rubbing blisters the size of quarters. We’re chasing a single puma’s VHF beep that keeps fading in and out.
Finally we spot her through binoculars—stretched out on a ledge like she owns Colorado, two half-grown kittens tumbling around her. One of the researchers, Sarah, just whispered “there you are, beautiful” and started crying quietly. Not dramatic sobbing—silent tears mixing with sweat. I pretended I had something in my eye but honestly I was wrecked too.
That moment flipped something in me. Big cat conservation isn’t abstract donation checkboxes. It’s people who smell like DEET and cat piss, living on gas station burritos, doing math at 3 a.m. so a highway doesn’t kill another mother.
Collar Tech That Actually Saves Lives (and the Times It Doesn’t)
Most of what keeps big cats alive these days comes down to knowing exactly where they are.
Here’s the messy reality of how it usually goes:
- Biologist picks the right moment (dusk or dawn when the cat’s less likely to bolt into traffic).
- Tranquilizer dart—sometimes it hits perfect, sometimes it’s a graze and now you’ve got 300 pounds of groggy anger.
- Rush in while the drugs work, blindfold the cat (calms them), check breathing/heart rate obsessively.
- Collar goes on—has to be fitted exactly or it’ll chafe sores or the cat’ll claw it off in a week.
- Blood draw, measurements, sometimes microchip or ear tattoo.
- Antidote shot and everyone hauls ass backward while praying she wakes up chill.
I’ve seen collar data literally reroute a planned housing development outside Denver. One female cougar kept crossing I-25 at the exact same spot—bam, state DOT put in a $2.1 million underpass. That’s big cat conservation doing real shit.
For the serious deep-dive people, Panthera’s Cougar Corridor stuff is gold → https://panthera.org/cat/cougar. They share maps and success rates openly.
The Screw-Ups Nobody Posts About
Collars break. Cats die anyway. One story that still haunts me: a young male puma got collared near Boulder, looked great for six months, then the signal flatlined. Turned out he’d been hit by a semi on Highway 36. The collar kept transmitting from under the truck for three days before someone noticed. Researchers drove out at 2 a.m. to recover it. Found pieces of fur stuck in the grille.
I asked my friend who works on the project if that kind of thing makes him want to quit. He just shrugged and said, “Every loss sucks, but every day we get data that prevents the next one.” Brutal, but honest.
The Human Side Nobody Talks About Enough
Big cat conservation in the U.S. is also about convincing regular people not to freak out when a cougar walks through their backyard in Evergreen or Nederland. It’s Facebook groups full of “there’s a lion in my yard!!!” posts and biologists patiently replying with trail cam stills explaining it’s just passing through.
It’s also ranchers who lose calves and want the cat gone, versus the ones who now use range riders and guard dogs because someone took time to sit on their porch and talk instead of lecture.
I’ve started carrying extra flyers in my car for the Colorado Parks and Wildlife mountain lion coexistence page. Handed one to a guy at the gas station last month who was ranting about “those damn cats.” He actually read it while pumping gas. Small win.
Where My Head’s At Tonight
I’m sitting here with cold feet under a blanket, laptop overheating on my thighs, thinking about that collared female we saw last summer. Her signal’s still pinging near Grand Lake. She had three kittens this spring according to the latest update. That feels like hope, even if it’s fragile as hell.
