Released October 16, 2008
STILLWATER, Okla. – Wildlife expert and Oklahoma State University alumnus Jon Jenks will be making Halloween less scary this year, helping Oklahomans to distinguish fact from myth about one of America’s legendary predators.
Jenks, distinguished professor in the department of wildlife and fisheries sciences at South Dakota State University, will give the presentation, “Oklahoma or Bust: Movements, Dispersal, and Ecology of Black Hills Mountain Lions,” at OSU on Halloween.
“Simply put, Jenks is doing the most important work on cougar ecology in North America, and OSU can always claim him as one of our own,” said Jim Shaw of the OSU Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources.
Jenks has been doing research on mountain lions in South Dakota for more than 15 years and has made some discoveries that are shocking to people, including experts in the field. The presentation is free and open to the public, and will take place at 3:30 p.m. in 101 Ag Hall on OSU’s Stillwater campus. Ag Hall is located on the corner of Monroe Street and Farm Road.
Mountain lions can weigh 150 pounds, see in the dark, swim, climb trees and jump over 10-foot-high fences. The cats were erased from Oklahoma early in the 20th century, said Shaw, a professor in the OSU department of natural resource ecology and management.
“Since then, the huge increase in Oklahoma’s deer herd along with legal protection for cougars gave the species a second chance,” Shaw said. “Only one thing was missing: How would (mountain lions) get here?”
Jenks, who earned his doctoral degree from OSU in 1991, is part of a team of researchers that captured 23 cougars in the Black Hills of South Dakota during the 2003-2004 winters. By fitting the mountain lions with radio-transmitters, Jenks was able to study the animals’ movements, which led to some surprising discoveries.
The OSU alumnus compiled numbers and found that mountain lions do not fit the reputation with which they have been branded.
“We've documented record dispersal movements of mountain lions from the Black Hills, South Dakota, to Oklahoma, and just recently, to (Canada’s) Saskatoon, Saskatchewan,” said Jenks.
The mountain lion that reached Oklahoma ended a record 671 miles from its starting place in the Black Hills. The cat was found dead next to railroad tracks just south of Red Rock, Okla., on May 27, 2004.
“Young males disperse, so that is significant to us,” said Chip Leslie, leader of the university’s Oklahoma Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit.
As Jenks’ professor during his graduate work at OSU, Shaw has a great level of respect and appreciation for Jenks and his work. Shaw said that until Jenks began radio-equipping cougars, nobody knew how far the sub-adults could disperse. Most guesses ranged from about 25 miles to 100 miles.
“When one of Jon’s cougars was found dead near Red Rock, we realized that they would disperse much farther than previously suspected,” Shaw said. “Since then several more of Jon’s cougars have traveled hundreds of miles.”
Mountain lions have been tracked to the Chicago area, as well as Ontario, Canada. This type of cat movement was previously unprecedented, as is Jenks’ work.
“As far as I know, there is nobody else studying mountain lions in North America the way he is,” said Leslie. “He is the go-to person for information on mountain lions in the United States and North America.”
The presentation will include videos of capturing and marking the mountain lions. While Jenks will discuss mountain lions movement, ecology and management, he said he would also “mention how to be safe when living or recreating in mountain lion country.”
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Contact: Sean Hubbard, 405-744-4490, sean.hubbard@okstate.edu
