Mammals

A new species was added to the all-time list when Burke Korol and Robert Wapple found Mountain Lion tracks along the banks of the Sas¬ katchewan River on the Gardiner Dam count. The tracks were be¬ lieved to be those of an adult female accompanied by two almost fully grown young. Interestingly, a single adult was seen crossing a nearby road just over a month later, sug¬ gesting that the family unit had bro¬ ken up by that time or that there was another animal in the vicinity. Al¬ though not new, two other cat spe¬ cies were also recorded. A set of Lynx tracks were found in the Cy¬ press Hills on the Fort Walsh count, the first report of this species in a number of years. Bobcat tracks on the Grasslands National Park count combined with the Feral Cat found on the Gardiner Dam count means that all of the provinces free-roaming cats were seen. The very mild weather left very poor conditions for finding mammal tracks throughout much of the south¬ ern portion of the province and in the southwest corner the complete ab¬ sence of snow for the entire count period made things even worse there. As a result, for the very first time, two areas conducted mammal counts and reported no animals.