Cougar! - Hardcover

Danz, Harold P.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0804010145 ISBN 13: 9780804010146

Publisher: Swallow Press, 1999

Synopsis

Known alternately as the puma, mountain lion, or panther, the cougar covers a territory on this continent almost as far-ranging as humans. Previous literature has implied, in a carefully crafted but thinly veiled manner, that the cougar presents little threat to human life and that a person should more fear the possibility of being struck by “a piano falling from the sky.” Documentation on cougar attacks has been sketchy, thus lending credence to the false notion of the cougar as a timid and cowardly species, one that flees at the mere suggestion of possible human contact.

In Cougar! Harold Danz integrates the past history of Felis concolor, its behavior, habits, and relationship with other species, with current conditions and discusses the continued existential probabilities for the cougar as a wild species. He analyzes nearly 150 cougar attacks on humans as the rare but devastating effects of an increasing cougar population and the expanded use by humans of ecotone areas and cougar habitat.

Although the ideas presented here may not be welcomed by some, this book will prove useful in understanding the dilemma facing the future of human interaction with this animal. Biologically sound, historically thorough, and politically frank, Cougar! is an important study on a growing environmental problem.

About this title

About the Author

Harold P. Danz is the author of Of Bison and Man. He makes his home in Chandler, Arizona.

From Kirkus Reviews

paper 0-8040-1015-3 Note your place in the food chain, suggests former Park Service officer Danz. It is an apex position, but you are not alone at the top. Meet the cougar. The cougar is one of the slickest predators on the face of the earth, Danz informs us. It is also one of the most furtive (a night stalker, a shadow cat), and it is a carnivore (of skunk and cow, elk and jogger) that finds palatability secondary to opportunity. As such, it has been the scourge of ranchers and hunters and the occasional distraught relative of a missing person, and has suffered the consequences, mostly death by bullet. Danz has gathered here much of the information published on the cougar, from the origins of its many fanciful names (catamount, painter, puma, mountain lion, panther) to behavioral characteristics, to how it relates on interspecies and intraspecies levels. Mostly though, Danz is fascinated by the human-cougar relationship, in particular its disharmonies. He doesn't dismiss the awe in which we hold the cat or the respect it receives from Native Americans (though it never achieved iconic status), or what an acute loss the disappearance of such a charismatic animal would be. But he is taken with the simple fact that the cougar eats people; he documents in detail each known incident, and he warns of increasing attacks as cougar habitat is encroached upon by development. Danz lets readers know just where he stands: ``If a cougar . . . should threaten human life, then allowance and accommodation is no longer an acceptable or appropriate action,'' though it is clear he would defend the cat up to that point. This is an admirable synthesis and summary of cougar knowledge. (photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Swallow Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0804010145
• ISBN 13: 9780804010146
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 325