Cougars on the cliff One man's pioneering quest to understand the mythical mountain lion, a memoir

Hornocker, known throughout the wildlife science community as "The Cougar Guy," has studied this elusive and enigmatic big cat for decades. The wanton killing of this species that was once considered vermin had driven the cougar from much of its range across the country and threatened it with extirpation. In this memoir of the early days (1964--1973) of his cougar studies, Hornocker, with former reporter Johnson, writes of the Idaho Cougar Project, seminal research that set the stage not only for further national study of this fascinating animal, but also for changing attitudes about living in proximity to an apex predator. Tales of chasing the lions with dogs through deep mountain snow as they attempt to tree the cats for capture reveal the amount of effort and dedication required to study an animal more adapted to the wilderness than its human pursuers. Based on the journals and field notes that the author and his partners kept during the study, this memoir documents the immediacy and excitement of pioneering research, ideas formed from following tracks and discovering kills, reencounters with tagged cougars, and the camaraderie formed during difficult fieldwork. Spiced with photographs of Hornocker and his crew with the cats, as well as maps, this reads like an adventure novel.