English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

I have always had a childhood fascination with Mountain Lions (Puma concolor) and a recent narrative I read of a lion travelling from South Dakota to Connecticut got me very interested in learning more about its origins (Way 2017). And so, it was with good fortune that I was able to find it here with Mountain Lions of the Black Hills. the book was an enjoyable read and is a valuable contribution to north America’s predatory fauna. Mountain Lion is a cat with many names: Cougar, Puma, Catamount, Panther, and Deer tiger, among others. their large range once included virtually all the lower 48 United States from coast to coast, but by the 1960s they were reduced to small populations in the western United States and a token population in south Florida. In Mountain Lions of the Black Hills, author Jonathan Jenks describes his research team’s experiences and findings from over 200 of these amazing animals, radio-tracked as they returned to a portion of the northern Great Plains in western South Dakota. Jenks has an easy-to-read style where each chapter is written like a stand-alone scientific manuscript with a complete Literature Cited section at the end. Each bibliography cites peer-reviewed articles and graduate theses/dissertations, many from his own students. However, chapters contain simplified enough language to make it readable for the layman and each chapter smoothly flows from one to another as he re ports on Mountain Lion ecology, characteristics (e.g., body size and distribution), diet, population dynamics, disease ecology, nutrition, behaviour, and genetics. I particularly liked the sections on dispersal (e.g., pages 57 – 59) showing how far young Mountain Lions can travel when they leave their mother’s territory. Jenks provides very interesting discussion on how that population of lions is connected to others in Wyoming, Colorado, and north Dakota. Jenks explores a population that was just recolonizing the Black Hills in the late 1990s yet quickly saturated the area within about 10 years. His research examined the impact of a changing prey base on population growth then decline as lions went from a protected species to having an established hunting season set on the cats. A theme of Jenks’ prose is figuring out how to balance conserving Mountain Lions with the needs of humans. I found the book to be useful and a great reference for the species as it slowly expands its range eastward, reclaiming territory that had been lost within the past 100–200 years. It is easy to find key information on the species, such as territory sizes for males (300+ km2) and females (66–198 km2), body weights of males (aver aging 130–150 pounds, 59–68 kg) and females (90 pounds, 41 kg), litter sizes (averaging 3+), age of dispersal (a relatively young 15 months of age), and population size in the Black Hills (150–250). the book is only 160 pages yet has 57 black and white photos and Mountain Lions of the Black Hills: History and Ecology