One Man's Pioneering Quest to Understand the Mythical Mountain Lion
Maurice Hornocker is recognized worldwide as the first scientist to unravel the secrets of America's most enigmatic predator — the mountain lion. He is the 2024 recipient of the internationally prestigious Aldo Leopold Memorial Award, bestowed annually by The Wildlife Society to one scientist in recognition of a career devoted to wildlife conservation. A story of redemption, this memoir is about the never-before-told adventures, challenges and controversies surrounding Hornocker’s groundbreaking study of cougars in the remote reaches of North America.
About the Book
North America's biggest cat was once killed for bounty dollars, slaughtered with impunity and driven toward extinction. But today's cat of intrigue, despite our lingering fears and misconceptions, has returned to much of its native range in the western United States and gained respect as a predator integral and necessary to wild ecosystems. This turnaround was triggered by one man: Maurice Hornocker. Cougars on the Cliff recounts the early years of his research (1964–1973) when he tracked lions following scent hounds and cat tracks in the snow — before telemetry was available. Hornocker was first to learn that mountain lions living in stable populations limit their own numbers through territoriality and a concept he called “mutual avoidance.” This insight flew in the face of long-held beliefs that cougars were prolific and wanton killers that needed to be controlled as vermin. Thanks to Hornocker’s work, today cougars can be found throughout the West and have even started to reclaim their place in eastern United States.
“Few have had such a contribution or impact on one animal as Maurice Hornocker has had on cougars. His story needs to be told for all to know. It is remarkable.”
— Douglas W. Smith
Senior Wildlife Biologist, Yellowstone National Park Leader for Yellowstone Wolf Project
“Spiced with photographs of Hornocker and his crew with the cats, as well as maps, this reads like an adventure novel.”
— Booklist, starred review
More to Explore
Read an Excerpt
Few creatures on this planet elicit the level of fascination and fear that cougars do. We hold them in awe for their embodiment of the wild. At the same time, as increasing human-cougar encounters make headlines, we dread they're out to kill us. Despite researchers' continued attempts to inform the public that these animals prefer to hunt in solitude, and avoid humans, cougars remain the stuff of erroneous legend. Like a feline version of Big Foot, the mythical quality of the mountain lion lives on.
Did You Know…?
‣ Hornocker and his colleagues trekked more than 15,000 miles in a decade over mountainous terrain on foot and snowshoes to study mountain lions.
‣ Mountain lions can't roar – but they can purr and even whistle.
‣ Mother mountain lions stay with their young, while teaching them to hunt, for eighteen months to two years before they breed again.
‣ As mountain lion populations continue to expand, most cougars seen in urban areas are probably young “transients” seeking new territories, not people to eat.
Flopsy, roaming the bluffs outside his pen at Taylor Ranch, offers the author a classic wild cougar portrait. Photo: Maurice Hornocker
On the hunt in Brown's Basin downstream from Cabin Creek, Wilbur Wiles and hounds Red, Ranger, and Chub power uphill while tracking a mountain lion. Photo: Maurice Hornocker
Data collected in the field were recorded each night in notebooks. Here, the author enters a narrative about the day's hunt and discoveries. Photo: Wilbur Wiles
Now and then, a cougar "treed" in a cave. Here, Wilbur Wiles waits until a drugged No. 4, Hazel, can be eased safely from her rocky hiding place. Photo: Maurice Hornocker
Teeth evolved over eons to penetrate, shear, and chew. Photo: Maurice Hornocker
When on the hunt, a mountain lion relies on stealth and cunning more than chase and savagery. Photo: Maurice Hornocker
The author's daughters, Karen, ten, (left) and Kim, eight, bottle-feed seven-week-old cougar orphans Tommy and Flopsy a formula prescribed by the Portland Zoo. Photo: Maurice Hornocker
About Maurice Hornocker
Maurice Hornocker, PhD, is a wildlife biologist best known for advancing our knowledge of the elusive mountain lion's behavior and ecology. During his fifty-five years of research in Idaho, New Mexico and Yellowstone National Park, he published numerous scientific papers about cougars and co-authored or edited books that include:“Yellowstone Cougars,” “Cougar: Ecology & Conservation,” and “Desert Puma.” All three books won The Wildlife Society's annual Wildlife Publication Award in 2020, 2010 and 2002, respectively. His writing, research, and mountain lion photographs have appeared in publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian, and National Wildlife magazines.
He and his colleagues have also conducted pioneering research on other big cat species throughout the world including Siberian tigers, jaguars, leopards, ocelots, lynx and bobcats. Hornocker and his wife, Leslie, live in Bellevue, Idaho, with their bird dogs, dressage horses, and a Manx cat named Redd.
(Maurice Hornocker with Redd)
Cougars on the Cliff is written with David Johnson, a retired roving regional reporter-columnist for the Lewiston Tribune in Lewiston, Idaho. He holds bachelor's degrees in wildlife management from the University of Minnesota and journalism from the University of Idaho. Johnson lives with is wife, Linda Weiford, in Moscow, Idaho.
Read More on Big Cats
Books co-authored, edited by or contributed to by Hornocker
Co-Author, University Press of Colorado; 2020 The Wildlife Society Book of the Year Award Winner
Co-Author and Editor, University of Chicago Press; 2010 The Wildlife Society Book of the Year Award Winner
Foreword, Island Press; 2002 The Wildlife Society Book of the Year Award Winner
Introduction and photographer, North Point Press
Foreword; The Blackburn Press
Editor, Sierra Club Books
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