Puma Watch!
11 Feb 2019
It was in the morning after our long hike that our guide, Hans, had seen tracks on
the dirt road near our lodge. There a puma had dragged the carcass of a guanaco
(small llama that lives in the wild here) that it had killed. Hans followed where the
puma had dragged the carcass through some brush where he – or maybe she –
had covered it with a mound of tawny thatched grass to hide the smell. Hans was
pretty sure the puma would return at the end of the day.
So as the sun was setting, around 9:30 pm here in the Patagonia plains, Hans took us back to the same mound to wait in silence on a hill across the road
hoping to see the puma return. Would the puma start eating the carcass? We
were a group of 6, as only one stayed behind. We climbed up to a lookout down
wind. We sat in silence without a sound coming from anywhere.
There are no lights here either, so only a touch of sunset was lighting anything.
After about twenty minutes we decided to go down through the brush where the
carcass was. We didnʼt see the puma but did see that the carcass which the puma
had recently uncovered and started to eat. The blood was fresh and had not yet
dried on the animal. We were actually late!
14 Feb 2019
Yesterday on our all day journey back to Balmaceda airport near Coyhaique en
route to Santiago we drove by the site of the carcass of the guanaco. We found it
smaller in size and re-covered with grass (Photo: see the large light colored bell of
grass just beyond and to the right of the white flowers on the left side) I.e. the
puma had returned and started to eat the carcass but disguised it with grass for
his/her next feeding.
(Note the smokey view of the hills – there is no pollution here. This is from nearby
fires. The smoke has blown here and settled overnight.)
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