How Indigenous collaboration is saving the cougar
If Kim Sager-Fradkin didn’t have to write a grant proposal, she’d be spending her afternoon on the trail of a killer.
The biologist leads a team that’s researching cougars in Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. (The big cat is also referred to as a puma or a mountain lion.) Today, the team is tracking a cougar named James. It suspects he recently hunted an animal in a nearby forest.
“Visiting cougar kill sites is really fun and like being sort of a forensic scientist,” says Ms. Sager-Fradkin.
It’s tempting to call her a CSI – cougar scene investigator – but her formal title is wildlife program manager for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. She’s overseeing the Olympic Cougar Project in partnership with Panthera, a
