Man Vs. Puma

Enter an extraordinary arena

for big cat encounters.

My gosh.

Check that out. How cool is that?

Here, pumas have control.

This is why I came to Patagonia.

You can fear their stealth...

She's totally crouched down and hunkered.

That guanaco has no idea.

Feel their power...

It's amazing how strong she is.

And maybe see how big cats

teach kittens to hunt.

There she goes, there she goes, there she goes!

She's on it, she's on it, she's got it!

It's one man's mission...

She knows we're here.

...that becomes a face-off.

Oh, my gosh.

This is southern Chile's

Torres del Paine.

It's a stunning and serene landscape.

But an eerie echo signals the presence

of a deadly predator.

Did you hear that?

Listen.

Can you hear that yowl?

That's a puma. That's a puma.

That's a female in heat estrous call.

Boone Smith is a big cat expert

who's tracked pumas since he was a kid.

Here, pumas rule.

Close encounters, guaranteed.

The females, when they come into heat,

they get really vocal, they get really loud,

like it's...

it's kind of an eerie sound.

Boone wants to see how young cats learn to hunt.

First he needs kittens.

And that starts with one wannabe mama

yearning for a mate.

It's girls' night out for this lonely cat.

In the game of love, she is a proactive puma.

A potential mate.

But this cool cat appears uninterested.

He's almost like he's sick and tired of her.

Like leave me alone.

She just got a big-cat cold shoulder.

And this is normal.

With pumas,

the gals are usually the pursuers.

And this is how it'll go.

It's almost like she harasses, harasses.

She's rolling across the top of him.

You can see he's gettin' agitated.

His ears are goin' back.

You watch.

He's gonna get upset.

You see that?

He just--boom--cuffed her.

Same thing again, here she goes again.

Her advances go ignored for days.

Finally...

the male puma takes charge...

...for a quick minute.

And just like that, it's done.

It was a slow start...

but now they may mate as many as 70 times a day.

This is a pairing of necessity.

A late summer fling.

Their relationship is over by week's end.

But in three months,

she'll have kittens.

Half a year passes.

The male puma is now gone.

And mama has her paws full.

Triplets.

This is where life gets really interesting...

because of their home.

There is no place like it in the world.

Chile stretches down

the west coast of South America.

Torres del Paine National Park

sits in the south.

500,000 acres.

Pumas here are protected

inside the park

and not hunted

on the farmland just outside.

That's key.

These cats have no fear.

The pumas have been protected for so long,

they're not really afraid of us.

They're not hidden, they're in the open,

and it gives us a chance to get up close and personal.

Boone will track the felines

to see how big pumas train the next generation.

And that's gonna be really neat

to see what gets passed on from generation to generation.

He has better than a front-row seat.

Dang, that is gorgeous.

He's in the arena.

One curious biped in a field of fangs and claws.

First, to find the prey.

And it's not hard.

The big menu item out here is guanaco,

kind of camels without humps.

They are the largest wild animal in South America.

We've got a lot of puma food right here.

They're always up on top.

They're kinda like sheep and goats

that always want to be looking down on things

Only one in three guanacos

live long enough to become adults.

Not in the guanaco's favor?

Hey, guys.

A fence that separates

the national park from farmland.

This fence that seems so insignificant

is just a death trap.

Oh, yeah, I just saw it.

Oh, yeah, there's one--

I can see feet kicking up in the air.

On the chance there's a cat on it,

let's move.

Aw, man.

What to do?

Boone consults his local guide.

I think we try and get it out.

I think there's a...

It's probably gonna beat the crap out of us.

Ah, shoot.

It's okay, it's okay.

I promise. I'm trying to help you.

Ugh!

Just go the other way.

Just go that way, go that way.

That still might be puma food.

That's a pretty...

It's got a good laceration.

Nearby,

another guanaco wasn't so lucky.

Check this out.

That is all that is left of a puma kill.

A mother puma caring for two or three kittens

needs to kill a guanaco about once a week.

And if Boone listens to the guanacos,

they may lead him to a puma on the hunt.

One of the things we can key on

is these guys have a really distinct alarm call.

Anytime they see a puma,

they're gonna talk at it, bark at it a little bit,

make sure all the others know

that there's something that's dangerous.

There's guanaco up on the rocks.

Let's go on up.

Oh, look at that.

I got a cat, I got our cat.

It's a big female.

And she has her eye on Boone.

You gotta be kidding me.

She moves nearer to him

than any wild cat ever.

I'm seeing craziness.

She's dangerously close,

and there's nowhere to hide.

Oh, my gosh.

There's little cover in Chile's Torres del Paine.

Only a small boulder

between Boone Smith

and a puma on the hunt.

She's coming across right here.

It's unreal.

I've never...

like pumas don't do this.

It's incredible.

You see that look she gave,

right as she comes up,

like she's starting to look around,

like she's looking to hunt.

I say we go follow her, just to go see what she does.

As he follows her,

he realizes she's got more on her mind

than just hunting.

You can hear the kittens.

Do you hear the kittens all the way across?

Chirp chirp.

Those are the kittens all the way across

talking at her.

You got that?

It sounds just like a bird,

but it's just the kitten talking back at mom,

just kinda like, "Hey, here I am, here I am.

Where are you?"

I got 'em.

You seeing this?

Listen. She's breaking bones.

Mom knows we're here,

and she's just sitting here letting us watch.

This is going to be a behavior that they learn from her.