Wildlife Personalities Play a Role in Nature
The New York Times
Studies help explore the ways that animals — whether bold or shy, aggressive or meek, interact with their environment.
In August, a mountain lion was sighted several times prowling the suburbs of New Canaan, Conn., and not for the first time. A decade ago, a young mountain lion made its way to Connecticut, prowling more than 1,500 miles from the Black Hills of South Dakota, before it was killed crossing a highway.
What stands out about these incidents to Malcolm L. Hunter, Jr., a professor emeritus of wildlife ecology at the University of Maine, is the exploratory personalities of the tawny felines.
“You can be sure the individual young mountain lion that left South Dakota and ended up being run over by a car in Connecticut, was not a stay-at-home, timid fellow,” he said.