I've spent much of my working life
trying to film big cats.
I've watched them in the wild
and analyzed the footage in the editing room,
which has given me a real insight into their behavior.
Today, we can see these amazing predators
on our screens any time we choose.
(dramatic music)
But until quite recently,
we knew practically nothing about them.
Big cats are normally shy and very secretive.
Today, their populations are shrinking fast.
But now we have the means to view them
in more detail than ever.
And learn the intricacies of their lives.
Which is just as well, because we need to
find ways of living alongside them,
before they disappear forever.
To most people, this cat is a puma.
But it also goes by the names of cougar or mountain lion.
However, these cats are only distantly related to lions.
They're much more closely related to cheetahs.
And while pumas are often found in mountains,
they're just as at home in the lowlands,
dense forests,
treeless pampers,
or deserts.
They're among the most versatile of all cats.
But just because they're widespread,
adaptable, and found over most the Americas,
doesn't mean they're easy to see.
As recently as 20 years ago,
to see a puma anywhere in the wild,
for more than a fleeting moment,
or far in the distance, was almost impossible.
To study pumas by normal observation
was out of the question.
For centuries the puma kept its secrets mostly to itself,
but recently a few dedicated scientists and filmmakers,
along with modern technology such as camera traps,
have allowed us to crack the hardest of nuts,
observing pumas in the wild.
These rare images are the result of many seasons of work,
and give us a unique insight into how pumas
survive the harsh conditions of a Montana winter.
Casey Anderson has spent years trying to get close to pumas,
and his efforts have paid off.
This is Mama Mo,
and her cubs.
She's given Casey privileged access to her life,
as long as he keeps his distance,
or uses remote cameras.
The cubs are a few months old and desperate to
go out and study the local wildlife.
They need to know what they can eat,
and what they should avoid.
Elk tend to stay away from places
where pumas can hide if the possibly can.
Big horn sheep are an option,
but are also agile and fast on rocky slopes.
Pumas are, above all else, deer hunters.
Here in Montana they have white-tailed deer,
as well as the very similar mule deer.
Mama Mo likes to hunt at dusk.
The low contrast light makes her very hard to see.
When the deer are distracted,
she can move rapidly towards them.
(deer bleating)
This time, the white-tailed deer escape,
and the mule deer wasn't so lucky.
This will feed the family for days.
Typically, pumas don't leave a kill
until everything is gone.
But to just focus on one particular cat
as a guide to the behavior of such
a widely distributed species,
would be misleading.
In the far south of South America,
in Chile's Torres Del Paine National Park,
deer are rare,
and pumas hunt a very different kind of animal.
The guanaco, a member of the camel family.
Here there are no rules, or other predators,
and the pumas can relax in the open.
This is a world they can claim as their own.
As a testament to their success,
there are plenty of giant scavengers
whose very existence depends on the cats.
These are condors, the biggest vultures in the world.
For me, as a naturalist, this is an interesting situation.
The guanaco is one of a few camel species
that survived the Ice Age extinctions,
but this open country grazer wouldn't have been
on the menu for pumas in the Ice Age,
because once, wolves lived here too.
Today the adaptable puma has found a way
of surviving on treeless grasslands.
A mother can take her cubs into open country,
in a way that her northern cousins could only dream of.
But two decades ago, these pumas were
just as shy of humans as those in the north.
Gradually, the pumas of Torres Del Paine
have become more and more visible.
And now give us an amazing opportunity
to see puma behavior close up.
We came here at the suggestion of filmmaker Christian Munoz,
who's been visiting this place for decades
in search of pumas.
He knows many of the cats in the area,
and even watched some of them grow up.
They behave naturally when he's close.
They feel safe enough to relax in between takes.
Since I came the first time back in the 80s,
it was almost impossible to spot a puma.
I mean you can see it on the top of the hill
and they run away.
So later I came back every year,
and the pumas started coming more habituated to people.
This is partly to do with an increase in tourism,
but also because of the persistence
of a few filmmakers such as Christian.
However, if you want to film wild big cat behavior,
it's also important that they prey animals
are relaxed around humans too.
This isn't like filming in Africa,
where people on foot would scatter the wildlife.
Here, the only thing that upsets guanaco are pumas.
When I arrived, I had no idea quite how
extraordinary this place was.
(guanacos bleating)
I was amazed that having spent months
waiting for pumas in other parts of the world,
how tolerant these cats were.
What I didn't realize is that they had
a whole lot more tolerance in store for all of us.
The mother puma has the same job
as any mother with cubs,
teaching her children to hunt.
Which mostly involves letting them make their own mistakes.
In this open country, a herd is no good.
They're far too aware.
They need a straggler to practice on.
Their mother leads the way.
Without cover, stealth is essential.
She knows how to stay unseen,
while closing the gap between herself and the guanaco.
The cubs are keen students and try to
copy their mother by creeping after her.
They're making all the right moves,
but have yet to realize they're supposed to be invisible.
(guanaco bleating)
The cubs seem surprised.
The guanacos distinctive alarm call warns others nearby.
To the casual observer this may look like a failed hunt,
but in truth, it was a valuable lesson for the cubs,
on the importance of stealth.
They'll need at least another year
before they're skilled enough to get
anywhere near a guanaco.
The stragglers find their way back to the herd.
Pumas evolved to stalk deer through
forests with lots of cover.
But on these open grasslands, they're tested to the limit.
Guanacos have long necks and sharp eyes.
But at night, their vision is less useful.
As darkness falls, the guanacos always
move to a new location.
I wondered whether the pumas tended to
do most of their hunting at night.
With ultra sensitive night cameras,
we have a chance to see what happens.
Like deer and antelope in other parts of the world,
the guanacos often gather in open places.
And, as it gets darker, they all sit down for the night.
They stay still and completely silent.
Presumably, this makes it harder for predators to find them.
The puma needs to find a herd before it's too dark.
Despite her superb night vision,
the guanacos can be very hard to see,
unless they're moving.
It is a real game of cat and mouse.
The guanacos' main plan is to basically
sit down somewhere very quietly and don't move all night,
which makes them extremely hard for the pumas to find.
To help us see what's going on,
we also have infra red and thermal cameras.
Even though the hazy moon barely illuminates the ground,
she moves with ease,
and merges perfectly with the background.
Until she reveals herself against the sky.
(guanacos bleating)
But now she knows where they are,
and she can hear where they're going.
Towards a great collection of nervous guanacos by a lake.
Once the moon is completely covered by clouds,
the puma has the upper hand.
(guanacos bleating)
In the darkness, the guanacos are too scared to run far,
and she can take her time.
At double her weight, this guanaco is far more
than she can eat in one sitting.
But she does intend to keep the prize all to herself,
so when she's had enough she attempts
to conceal it from scavengers.
And there are plenty about.
If the condors spot it they would finish it in 20 minutes.
We found a female that had killed a guanaco.
She ate a little of the guanaco.
She moved to a rock close by to her.
She slept there for a few hours.
And suddenly, next to us, we saw another puma,
just walking behind the little hill.
What happened now was very intense.
I start filming, start filming, it was Matt there.
And actually I noticed there was a puma
we've known since she was a cub.
She's very calm, she loves people.
So she started walking, walking close to us,
and behind her came a male.
She was with a male, with a boyfriend.
And the male also does the same thing.
He was a huge male, a very big animal.
The new female helps herself to the kill,
while the male takes a backseat.
The hunter is not happy.
She comes to investigate the intruders,
both of them older and more experienced than herself.
The hunter skirts around the edge of her guanaco.
Her slow submissive movements allow
the visiting female to feed undisturbed.
A blink and a look away demonstrate
the hunter has no aggressive intentions.
The hunter waits.
The male does nothing, yet at twice the weight
of the females he has the power to drive them both off.
Pumas have always been thought of as solitary,
but rare images like these suggest we have much to learn.
Perhaps they know each other, or they're related.
A few hundred meters away there are more pumas.
A mother and her three almost full grown cubs
are taking a keen interest.
Later, I don't know how many minutes,
it was so, so intense, the moment.
I mean everything happened so fast.
We saw the mother with the three cubs
just coming into the place again.
And they just walked faster.
They check the camera trap
before we've even had time to set it up.
These cats are taking the idea of
being comfortable with people a bit further
than any of us were expecting.
As a filmmaker you're always trying to
create a sense of being there to the viewer,
but with wild big cats it's very rare
to actually be there yourself.
When they get to the kill they start to just kind of,
not fight with our female, five year old female.
We call her the sister.
And something like telling her just give me space,
I mean I want to eat and I don't want you close.
So they started just making some faces
and noises to frighten them then,
until the male just gets up.
The mother is concerned for her cubs.
He started walking into the mess around the kill,
and he just put a knot on everything.
He just tells the other cats in his way, just stop,
so this is my kill.
So everyone stops.
(cub growls)
The curious cub stands his ground.
The male could easily kill them,
yet withholds his full power.
Perhaps the cubs are his.
To make his point clear, he scent marks the ground.
And then, let's the family feed.
Kind of seen this scene in Africa,
you'll see lions eating an antelope or something.
This is the cat that made the kill.
Christian didn't know where she was from,
and her relationship with the other cats
was a bit more strained.
Outnumbered, all she could do was make friends.
Perhaps she was trying to make friends with us.
I was hoping for intimate images,
I wasn't expecting it to be quite this intimate.
(pumas growling)
But the hunter still can't get to her own kill.
The smallest cub feels bold enough to have a go at her.
The hunter doesn't retaliate,
she just gives the cub a clout to show that she could.
Eventually, the hunter picks her moment,
and she is allowed to feed.
Now there are seven pumas around the guanaco.
The cubs could be related to the male,
but even then, this is unusual behavior.
And the other two females could well be complete strangers.
Events like this have rarely been captured on film,
and give us a dramatically different view
of the cat we always thought of as a solitary hunter.
Is this new behavior?
Or are pumas just returning to the way they once lived?
A few hundred years ago there were
30 million guanacos on these plains.
And early European colonists described
prides of pumas feasting on kills.
Before they hunted out the guanacos herds,
the puma's prey.
Like the pumas in the north, they waste nothing
and spend a couple of days finishing the kill,
leaving us all amazed at the trust they show us.
I love the way they reframe the camera trap shot
to get us closer still to this normally elusive cat.
After decades of protection, in some places puma numbers
have risen to almost one cat per square mile
in Torres Del Paine.
This is off the scale in terms of modern big cat density.
But it could be closer to that of pre-colonial times.
Torres Del Paine has now become a crucial refuge.
From here, some young pumas follow their prey
onto farmland and beyond.
Genetics have shown that 10,000 years ago,
pumas almost became extinct,
and survived in a refuge somewhere in northeastern Brazil,
before they were able to re-invade their old haunts again.
Even though the last few centuries have seen
the pumas range in population shrink dramatically again,
there are still thought to be about 50,000 pumas surviving
in almost every kind of habitat,
including frozen mountains,
deserts,
rainforests,
and human habitats,
like farmland.
After their Ice Age near extinction,
we're lucky we still have pumas at all.
Perhaps with tolerance, and the help of places
like Torres Del Paine,
the adaptable puma has a better chance
through the next difficult century
than some of the other big cats.
(dramatic music)