The most reliable way is to run them down with dogs but the key words are
"hard to see" in all cases. Once you turn loose your $20,000 worth of dogs
you are obligated to follow them until they tree the cat or lose it. You
might have to run 20 miles through the worst terrain imaginable. Only a few
people are physically up to it. Cougars don't come to bait well. If bait is
used the best technique is to set up a remote flash camera but those
pictures look very unnatural. Cougars tend to be nocturnal so they are
seldom seen in the daylight and then it is usually in weak light. If one can
find a den and watch it from a distance with long lenses for days at a time
some good images can be made but this takes lots of time and patience and
luck. I've seen several cougars in the wild but never such that I could make
a picture. Once in a while people get lucky. A friend mine was hunting deer
with his young son and came across a female cat feeding on a fresh deer
kill. The cougar must have been very hungry because she would not leave the
kill. While they watched from about 75 yards up the hill she continued to
feed and watch them at the same time. I don't recall if they took pictures.
Most of the high quality cougar images are made in a captive environment.
The photographers are not always up front about that either. People that get
good pictures in the wild really earn them. I could bore the list members
for a long time with pussy-cat stories. /jmac
-----Original Message-----
From: olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Andrew Fildes
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 2:17 AM
To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [OM] Re: [Photo] Lovison family portrait
On 02/03/2005, at 7:54 AM, James N. McBride wrote:
> My favorite cats now are cougars. We
> have them all over the place but they are hard to see in a way that
> you can
> photograph them.
It's just a matter of bait, surely. Tie a goat to a stake?
Seriously, it usually comes down to patience and a good knowledge of
the animals habits. A lot of patience of the three days up a tree type.
The wildlife films guys I've met will spend a LOT of time just waiting
in harm's way.
AndrewF
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