{"id":497103,"date":"2026-03-01T07:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T07:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/497103\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T07:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T07:38:10","slug":"why-scientists-doped-up-mountain-lions-and-climbed-down-trees-with-them-in-yellowstone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/497103\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Scientists Doped Up Mountain Lions And Climbed Down Trees With Them In Yellowstone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Faced with the quandary of how to get mountain lions out of trees for scientific analysis,\u00a0researchers dosed them with ketamine, then climbed up to place harnesses on the still-conscious cats.<\/p>\n

Wesley Binder,\u00a0a doctoral student at Oregon State University, told Cowboy State Daily that he was a little nervous the first few times he did it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a little wild. And the first few times I did that, it was intimidating,”\u00a0said Binder, who studied interactions between wolves and mountain lions in the northern Yellowstone National Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m up there thinking, \u2018Oh, I hope this drug is working,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

After Binder got a mountain lion secured in a harness, it would be lowered gently to the ground another sedative was administered to knock it out for the hands-on study.<\/p>\n

\"MountainMountain lion researcher Wesley Binder climbed into trees to put harnesses on mountain lions that were sedated with ketamine, but still wide awake. The harnessed mountain lions were lowered to the ground for examinations during research in Yellowstone National Park. (Courtesy Wesley Binder)\"DuringDuring a research project in Yellowstone National Park, mountain lions treed by hounds were given ketamine to sedate them but were still awake as they were put into harnesses and lowered to the ground. (Courtesy Wesley Binder)\"DosingDosing mountain lions with ketamine made it possible for researchers to capture them for deep-dive studies into how mountain lions and wolves interact in Yellowstone National Park. (Jacob W. Frank, National Park Service)Arrow leftArrow rightA Balancing Act<\/p>\n

The study that Binder is involved in sheds light on how wolves and mountain lions might have reached a tenuous balance in Yellowstone.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re rival species. They compete for food and sometimes even fight and kill one another.<\/p>\n

But they also\u00a0have\u00a0learned\u00a0to adapt to one another. Evidence suggests that in the northern end of Yellowstone, mountain lions have started eating more mule deer, while wolves continue to dine on elk.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people have suggested that if cougars respond to wolves by using more mountainous habitat, that a bit more rugged, that habitat might be better suited for mule deer, Binder said.<\/p>\n

There are also fewer elk to go around than there were when the northern Yellowstone herd peaked in the 1990s, about the time that wolves were reintroduced to the park.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the big thing that\u2019s driving the change in diet in North Yellowstone is the changes in the elk herd,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

An increase in the number of carnivores\u00a0consuming\u00a0elk might have been a factor. Along with mountain lions and wolves, black bears and grizzlies wanted their share of elk meat.<\/p>\n

However, other factors have been at play, such as\u00a0drought, and pressure from people hunting elk north of Yellowstone, Binder said.<\/p>\n

The herd also seems to have stabilized, holding at about 8,000 elk for roughly a decade, he said.<\/p>\n

And the wolves and mountain lions have carved out their respective places in the ecological order, Binder added. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout the last 10 years have been stable for wolves, mountain lions and elk,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Different Hunting Styles<\/p>\n

When it comes to killing prey, mountain lions are efficient, Binder said.<\/p>\n

An adult mountain lion at the top of its game can kill about one big game animal per week, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, that seems like a lot of food for a mountain lion. But they lose so much of it to scavengers, including wolves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mountain lions and wolves use different hunting tactics. Mountain lions hunt alone and rely on stealth and ambush tactics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think in general, these cougars getting about 10 yards away from the animal they\u2019re hunting before they start running\u201d in for the kill, Binder said.<\/p>\n

They go for the neck, usually clamping down on a hapless deer or elk\u2019s neck to deal death by suffocation.<\/p>\n

Wolves on the other hand hunt as a pack and will start a group of prey animals running, \u201cso that they can detect old, weak or sick\u201d animals to target,\u00a0Binder said.<\/p>\n

\"WildlifeWildlife researchers discovered that wolves frequently raid mountain lion kills in Yellowstone National Park. (Courtesy Wesley Binder)Chasing Cats Up Trees<\/p>\n

To capture mountain lions for the study, the research team brought in a houndsman, a hunter who runs packs of trained hounds after mountain lions.<\/p>\n

The hounds live to do one thing: \u00a0Chase mountain lions and run them up trees.<\/p>\n

However, not every tree a big cat climbed was suitable for the dicey part; hitting it with a ketamine dart so Binder could climb up after it.<\/p>\n

If the hounds ran a mountain lion up a tree that wasn\u2019t suitable, \u201csometimes we\u2019d throw snowballs or sticks at it,\u201d to coax it into climbing back down and running from the hounds again, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn average, we ran each cat up three or four trees\u201d before finding the right one, Binder added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Why Ketamine?<\/p>\n

He said ketamine is the drug of choice, because as a dissociative anesthetic,\u201d it puts mountain lions out of it, but leaves some of their essential physical abilities intact.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re dealing with a cat up a tree, you want to be able to safely handle them, but you don\u2019t want them to fall out,\u201d Binder said.<\/p>\n

On ketamine, \u201cthey don\u2019t really know what\u2019s going on, but they still can hang on. You can see them bobbing their heads, but they\u2019re holding on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Robert\u00a0Crabtree, the founder, chief scientist and president of the Yellowstone Ecological Research Center, said ketamine has long been used as a wildlife sedative.<\/p>\n

\u201cI probably used it a couple thousand times, on several species,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Some of those include coyotes, skunks, foxes, lynx and bobcats.<\/p>\n

Getting the dosage right is important, Crabtree said. And he always wondered what was going through the critter\u2019s minds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re aware of what\u2019s going on, and they might be\u00a0having\u00a0psychedelic , psychotic, paranoid experiences, from what he can tell from human experiences,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For humans, ketamine is used as a surgical\u00a0anesthetic\u00a0and is being researched for possible low-dose treatment of anxiety and depression.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also sometimes illegally sold as a street drug.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to keep an eye on an animal that\u2019s coming down\u00a0off\u00a0ketamine, because they can \u201ccycle back\u201d into a drug trip, Crabtree said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI once watched a coyote get the jitters\u201d as it cycled back near some water, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just about fell into the water and drowned,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Faced with the quandary of how to get mountain lions out of trees for scientific analysis,\u00a0researchers dosed them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-497103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}