[Eric Hansen]

Great picture of a cougar with 2 kittens, bear video and a fascinating story. Lead paragraphs below, more at url https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/16/california-livestock-mountain-lions-prey Petros Chrysafis has always had a fascination with predators, but he never thought he could make a career out of it. Then he helped a friend solve a chicken-stealing coyote problem. Word spread. Now he runs a one-man “predator detection and deterrence” business in California’s Central valley and Sierra Nevada mountains. His job is an odd combo of forensic scientist, homicide detective, set designer and negotiator. Typically when he first meets his clients, they are ready to find and kill the predator that’s been attacking their livestock. His goal is to offer an alternative: coexistence. Chrysafis, age 33, grew up in the Republic of Cyprus, where the largest beast of prey is a red fox. Today, he treks out into predator country without fear. “No point carrying bear spray,” Chrysafis said. “I’m a pretty big dude.” He works on about 60 cases a year in California’s backcountry settlements, grazing lands and mountain communities. When he arrives at a farm where owners have just lost livestock, emotions often run high. “There’s anger and then there’s grief that you have to navigate,” he said. “This work is 90% human conflict, 10% wildlife conflict.” His process begins with identifying the local predator. To gather information, Chrysafis deploys his secret weapon: trail cameras. He walks the land, looking at it say, how a mountain lion might see it – the vantage point of a high ridgeline, the draw of a pond – and places cameras by the clearings and trails where animals are most likely to walk by. The cameras are motion-activated, and store a few thousand time-stamped photos – shots of wildlife slipping by, sniffing the air and glowing like ghosts in night vision captures. The images he gathers often help to put landowners at ease; caught on film, even a mountain lion can seem less like an unseen stalker and more like an introverted neighbor. “It does change people’s perception of things,”