The Mountain Lion and Me

Casey: This is my home in montana, paradise valley,

On the outskirts of yellowstone national park.

These are my neighbors: Bears,

Wolves, elk, deer.

It's a blend of homes, ranches and wildlife.

I'm casey anderson, a wildlife filmmaker.

The kill.

I live amongst this amazing backdrop,

Filming all the creatures that call this home.

But there's one animal that's really

Captured my imagination.

Go see what we got.

An animal so secretive, few ever get to see it,

The mountain lion.

And on one snowy night in the middle of winter,

A female decided to pay me a visit.

One thing's for sure, she's here.

And I was captivated.

I entered her world.

I'll call it mama mo's hunting cave.

I watched as this incredible mother

Devoted her life to the survival of her young.

Since that chance encounter, I've been

In the tracks of a mountain lion,

And she's been watching me.

It began one winter night, when I'd been

Away filming in yellowstone.

So, kind of crazy, I am in yellowstone

Looking for mountain lions, and then I get home,

And there's fresh mountain lion tracks

Crossing my bridge.

He came right here.

Some people would be worried out here

Walking around at midnight looking for mountain lions.

Come home,

And guess what?

That night was the beginning of my relationship

With a lion I would come to call mama mo.

Look here.

So I've got these tracks, brand new,

In my driveway, walking right across my bridge.

This cat was just in my back yard.

At that point, it's like, is this just

The cat passing through.

Nonetheless, excited because there's fresh

Mountain lion tracks in my yard.

My house is in paradise valley, montana,

Just on the northern border of yellowstone national park.

I'm surrounded by perfect mountain lion habitat,

But I've never had one walking through my yard before.

And this cat, which I think is a female,

Based on the size of the tracks,

Literally looked in my window and walked down my steps.

She went on that way.

I'm gonna continue to follow her.

One thing's for sure, she's here.

She lives in my backyard, or I live in her backyard.

A mountain lion is one of the hardest

Animals to film or even get your eyes on,

And to have one literally come to your

Doorstep and say, "hey, here I am"

As a wildlife filmmaker, it's really a dream come true.

So I began to track this cat.

It was winter.

There was snow on the ground,

And every morning, I could see her tracks

And follow where they went.

Oh yeah, right here.

Going right over here by the wood pile,

Through the barbed wire fence.

Still going.

Through the junipers here.

A lot of work.

Near the edge of my property is an abandoned homestead,

A collection of buildings and barns,

All intact, but nobody's lived there for years.

Her tracks went past my house and then down

To this old ranch.

It has always been this mysterious place to me,

Where I always wondered if wildlife were

Using these old buildings.

But then seeing the mountain lion's tracks

Going down towards it on a regular basis

And walking in there for the first time,

I started looking around, and it's unbelievable.

There are carcasses everywhere,

Like, remnants of her kills.

It looks like this cat is killing things

Right here in this ghost town

And dragging the bodies into these buildings.

And I knew that I needed to figure out

Exactly what was happening here.

Walking into the building and seeing all these

Carcasses was like walking into a serial killer's basement.

Almost every one of these buildings

Has a dead mule deer like mummified inside of it.

It makes perfect sense.

This is a perfect hunting ground.

We see deer around these buildings all the time.

They get inside these buildings to get out of the wind.

And it's also perfect to use these buildings

To sneak up on them.

But, when it's windy out here, all this

Rattling and creaking will actually disguise

Her footfall as she's sneaking up.

A mountain lion always caches its kills

So they can come back and feed on the carcass

For several days, so I knew, at that point,

She was going to come back.

And I wanted to be there.

So I set up my camera traps and waited.

it's gonna be a long night.

I'm gonna find out who this cat is,

But then you start to forget.

What am I doing?

I'm putting a blind in an old building,

And I'm gonna sit here all night with a cat

That's killing mule deer regularly?

I'm gonna sit here by myself in the dark?

You know, as the sun goes down, it starts

To seem more like a haunted house

Rather than an old, cool ghost ranch.

I'm just gonna go quiet mode,

Just sit here and wait.

Could be two minutes, could be never.

Could be hours, just a waiting game.

And there she was,

An adult, female mountain lion.

And this big, beautiful female cat,

She's the one that's been walking in my yard.

She's the one that's killing all these deer

At this ghost ranch.

And my heart is pounding.

Most mountain lion's, when they make a kill,

Are gonna hide it in the bushes or cover it up somehow,

So the scavengers don't steal it.

But this cat's hiding her kills

In these buildings instead.

Mountain lions are amazing at adapting

To living next to humans.

It's not just pure wilderness around here anymore.

There are people and farms,

And she's found a way to use that to her advantage.

I can't even think of a better night.

I don't care how creepy it is.

It's completely worth the wait.

Snow is a blessing.

It means I can track her and see where she

Goes after she leaves the homestead.

These cats are invisible,

But even invisible animals will leave a footprint.

And what I soon discover is that this female

Is walking through my backyard on a regular basis.

Here I go again.

Female, she came through my yard last night,

Under my deck, over the bridge, by a lot

Of my camera traps, and I just got a couple

Of little images.

So now, I know these tracks are less than 24 hours.

She's definitely hunting, so I'm just gonna stay on 'em.

Maybe she made a kill,

And I'll walk right into it.

But she is whoopin' my butt.

Talk about not having to go to the gym.

Just follow a mountain lion around.

It's amazing.

You learn a lot, though, by just following the tracks.

I know wildlife biologists that have been

Tracking these cats their entire career

And have only got glimpses of this elusive animal.

These cats are like ghosts.

They don't want us to see them,

So to be able to follow the tracks

Of a wild, uncollared mountain lion

And have the chance to set up my camera traps

And see her again, that's amazing!

I'm on these tracks, and I'm following them,

And they're zigging and zagging through the bushes,

And then I come around the corner,

And these magpies are taking off.

I know right in front of me, there's something there,

And it's probably a kill.

This looks like a drag coming off the hill,

All these tracks, nothing going that way.

The kill.

It's a fresh kill of a mule deer.

And I literally can see my house from right here.

So now the mad rush is on.

I've got to go get all my cameras ready,

Get them back to this kill before she returns.

Man, backyard mountain lion.

That night, I happened to put a camera really low,

Like almost aiming straight up in the air,

Hoping to get maybe a cat just like looking

Over down at the camera.

What I got was way more than I thought

I was ever gonna get.

She walks in and just steps right over the camera,

And right on her belly, it was very obvious,

That she had been nursing, freshly nursing, kittens.