Coal Creek Wildlife-Cougar

Cougar, Cat of the Mountains by Craig, age 9

Late at night the cougar stalks silently toward its prey at about seven thousand feet above sea level in Colorado. The cougar is one of the biggest cats in America. A male is twenty-five to thirty inches tall at the shoulder. A full grown cougar weighs about two hundred seventy-six pounds. Did you know that the cougar is the biggest cat in the world that can purr? The cougar has a black tipped tail. It has four toes on its front paws and five on its back ones. They eat mule deer, mountain goats, antelope, elk, porcupine, and river otter. Their only predators are humans but they usually don't attack humans.

I got my information from ALBUM OF NORTH AMERICAN ANIMALS by Vera Dugdale and GUIDE TO WESTERN WILDLIFE by Buddy Mays.

Cougar by Frank, age 9

If you see a light brown wild cat 25-30 inches tall and 7-9 feet long and it weighs about 150-200 lbs, it might be a male cougar. A female cougar is 5-7 feet long and weighs 80-150 pounds. A cougar has sharp claws and teeth to attack its prey which are deer, mice, rats, squirrels and other rodents. A cougar lives in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. The cougar can either jump from the ground or from a tree to attack its prey. The cougars only enemies are hunters. Some of the names for a cougar are catamount, mountain lion and puma.

I got my information from ALBUM OF NORTH AMERICAN ANIMALS by Vera Dugdale.

Cougar by Lena, age 8

The sun rises over the mountains as a faint shadow jumps from rock to rock -- it is the cougar, strong and powerful. The cougar actually is only one of six names for this animal. The others are cougar, catamount, pointer, mountain lion, puma, and panther. The male is about 160 pounds and the female is 35-90 pounds. The cougar has three or four spotted cubs and can live to be 11 or older! The cougar has a small head, long neck attached to a big, low slung body. It has the biggest range of any American mammal. The cougar will eat any animal it can catch, but deer are its favorite.

I got my information from COUGARS by Lynn M. Stone.

Illustrated by Aylia and Lena

Cougar by Katie M., age 9

If you hear a loud, scratching noise in the mountains it will probably be a mountain lion. Mountain lions do not like other mountain lions. They do not like people and they do not eat people. In fact, they try to avoid people as much as possible. They like to hunt at night. They live in brushlands, grasslands and semi-deserts. The mountain lion's favorite food is deer. Sometimes they eat moose. A mountain lion's cubs start to stalk and kill by themselves when they are 20-22 months old. They live to be eleven or older. Another name for the mountain lion is cougar. A cougar belongs to the cat family. Their cousins are jaguars and leopards. Cougars have low slung bodies with long necks and small heads and big, long tails. Their colors are blonde, gray or mixed.

I got my information from COUGARS by Lynn M. Stone.

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