A Short Guide to Sierra Nevada Predators & Prey

Contents & Checklist

Predators

□ Black Bear □ Long Tailed Weasel □ Mountain Coyote □ Snakes □ Mountain Lion □ Red Tailed Hawk □ Bobcat □ Golden Eagle □ American Badger □ Great Horned Owl □ Raccoon

Prey

□ Mule Deer □ American Pika □ Mountain Cottontail □ Mountain Pocket Gopher □ Golden-Mantled Squirrel

Black Bear (Ursus americanus)

• Key Features: Long, heavy, and either glossy black or cinnamon brown fur. • Size & Weight: 5 feet long. Up to 300 lbs. • Range & Habitat: Mainly in Yellow Pine and Lodgepole- fir belts. In thickets or forest floors, sheltering in rock piles, caves, or hollowed trees. • Food: Small mammals, bird nests, & insects, and carrion. Also grasses, leaves, fruits, berries, nuts, and garbage. • Fact: Both young and adult bears are excellent climbers and may hide in one when disturbed.

Mountain Coyote (Canis latrans)

• Key Features: Gray to grayish brown fur, black stripe along back, underparts white. Nose, ears, and legs reddish. Tail is bushy and dark at tip. • Size & Weight: Up to 5 feet long. Around 20 to 30 lbs. • Range & Habitat: All throughout the Sierra Mountains. Usually lives and hunts in open terrain. • Food: Digs rodents such as pocket gophers and ground squirrels out of their holes. Preys on young deer, jackrabbits, mice, grasshoppers, and even birds. Also eats manzanita berries. • Fact: While typically hunting alone or in pair, coyotes will sometimes hunt in packs to bring larger prey, such as deer, down.

Mountain Lion (Felis concolor)

• Key Features: Reddish brown fur, white underside. Ears, nose, and feet blackish. Tail long and slender with a blackish tip. • Size & Weight: 6 to 8 feet long. Around 80 to 200 lbs. • Range & Habitat: Wide ranging and possible in any habitat in the Sierras. • Prey: Principally eats Mule Deer. • Fact: Second largest predator in the Sierras. Mountain lions will hide their kills under sticks and leaves and return to eat for a few days before moving on to its next kill.

Bobcat (Lynx rufus)

• Key Features: Reddish brown fur in summer. Grey in winter. Underside and inner legs white, spotted, or striped. Ears black at tip & base. Tail short with blackish tip. • Size & Weight: 3-4 feet long. Up to 25 lbs. • Range & Habitat: Common in almost all habitats in the Sierras. • Food: Strict carnivore. Rabbits, ground squirrels, wood rats, and pocket gophers make up the majority of its diet. Quail and other birds also eaten. • Fact: While typically hunting alone or in pair, coyotes will sometimes hunt in packs to bring larger prey, such as deer, down.

American Badger (Taxidea taxus)

• Key Features: Robust, broad, flat body with short, stout legs. Head with a black cap extending into snout. White cheeks and a narrow white stripe running from nose to back. Pelage long on sides. Tail short and bushy. • Size & Weight: 2 – 2.5 ft long. Up to 25 lbs. • Range & Habitat: All throughout the Sierra Mountains and Great basin where there is dry, open country. • Food: American badgers smell, rather than listen or look for, their prey. Most commonly feeds on ground squirrels and pocket gophers that can be dug out of their holes, but also eats most other rodents it can get its claws on. • Fact: It’s long, heavy foreclaws and muscled foreparts, badgers are able to seemingly “swim” through soil. It uses this ability to catch its underground prey, but also to escape larger predators, such as men or dogs.

Raccoon (Procyon lotor)

• Key Features: Robust body with black mask bordered by white fur. Pelage dense. Tail bushy with four to six black rings alternating with pale yellow or white. • Size & Weight: 2 – 3 ft long. Up to 18 lbs. • Range & Habitat: Widespread except for high elevations. • Food: Raccoons have a diet more diverse than even black bears. They prey on rodents, birds, frogs, fish, and insects and feed on berries, acorns, nuts, grains, and carrion. • Fact: Raccoons are curious and highly intelligent, diverting their attention many times a day into matters that catch their interest.

Long Tailed Weasel (Mustela frenata)

• Key Features: Short, tapered head. Body, neck, and tail long and slender. Legs short. Upper parts and legs brown and underparts white in summer. White throughout in winter. Tip of tail always black. • Size & Weight: 1-2 ft long. Up to 11 oz. • Range & Habitat: All throughout the Sierra Mountains in old logs, rock piles, or under buildings. • Food: Long tailed weasels are small but fierce predators. It can seek almost all burrowing rodents in their burrows or climb quickly up trees to catch squirrels or small birds. • Fact: In the winter, its white fur makes it nearly invisible against the snow. This makes it easier to evade other predators such as hawks, owls, and foxes.

Western Rattlesnake - Crotalus spp. Mountain Garter Snake - Thamnophis elegans

Snakes

Garter Snakes (Thamnophis elegans) – Slender throughout and up to 4 ½ ft long with a yelllow line along back and paler lines on either side with or without dots. Fast moving and able to swim and dive. Mostly preys on frogs, salamanders, mice and fish. Garter snakes are harmless to humans but may discharge a foul smelling fluid and excrement when handled.

Western Rattlesnake (Crotalus viridis) – Head semi triangular with thick body up to 5 ft. long. Covered in black or brown blotches except against a yellowish or grayish-brown body. Found in grasslands, rocky outcrops, brushy areas and trails. Primarily preys on rabbits, ground squirrels, birds, and lizards. Rattlesnakes are venomous and coil up, shape their forepart into an “S”, and shake their rattle rapidly when threatened. This is followed by a strike if these gestures do not scare off the aggressor, although they can strike without warning if taken by surprise. NEVER handle or taunt a rattlesnake!

Top Left; Golden Eagle – Aquila chrysaetos Top Right; Great Horned Owl – Bubo virginianus Below; Red Tailed Hawk –Buteo jamaicensis

Birds of Prey Family Accipitridae & Strigidae

Red Tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)– Broad wings and tail. Dark brown above, with a bright red tail and variable pattern below. Nests are twig platforms in trees or cliffs. Red Tailed Hawks mostly prey on rabbits, squirrels, and mice.

Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetas) – Dark brown plumage throughout, slightly paling at the head. Wingspan up to 7.5 ft wide. Keep large territories, keeping them widely dispersed from each other. Nests are massive piles of sticks and twigs lined with grass and set on cliffs or high in large trees. Diet is mainly ground squirrels and rabbits and uncommonly small deer.

Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus) – Flat topped head with large tufts one either side. Large yellow eyes in a reddish face disk. Feathers marbled finely. Wingspan up to 4 ft. wide. Great horned owls have a varied diet eating scorpions, crayfish, all rodents, snakes, and any bird smaller than it. Great horned owls are highly territorial and will chase and kill any other bird of prey in its range.

Greater Sage-Grouse(Centrocercus urophasianus)

• Key Features: Chubby round body, small head, long tail. Mottled brown with a black underside and a white ruffled chest • Size & Weight: Up to 30” in length, about 2 ft tall. Males up to 6 lbs. Females up to 3 lbs. • Range & Habitat: Sagebrush community • Food: Sagebrush leaves and insects • Fact: Sage-Grouse populations are on the decline due to habitat degradation and loss. • Predators: Coyotes, bobcats, badgers, hawks, eagles, and even ground squirrels.

Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemonius)

• Key Features: Large ears. Tail white below and black above. Reddish brown in the summer, grayish brown in the winter. Whitish throat and rump. • Size & Weight: Adults about 3 ½ ft tall at shoulder, about 6 ft long. Up to 200 lbs. • Range & Habitat: All throughout the Sierra Mountains in Summer, some migrate below to the valleys during winter. • Food: Deer browse almost all types of grasses, herbs, and shrubs. • Fact: Areas with large numbers of deer may suffer greatly from over browsing. Grass and herbaceous cover may be sometimes completely eliminated when deer. Predators such as coyotes and mountain lions discourage this type of behavior from deer and keep them from staying in one place too long. • Predators: Mountain lions & coyotes.

Mountain cottontail (Sylvilagus nutalii)

• Key Features: Ears rounded and about the same length as the head. Upper body yellowish brown with a blackish overwash. Undersurface and tops of feet white. Tail is cottony white. • Size & Weight: 12-15 inches long. Up to 3 lbs. • Range & Habitat: All throughout the Sierra Mountains in old logs, rock piles, or under buildings. • Food: Cottontails primarily eat grasses, but as they become sparse in winter, they turn to woody plants for twigs and bark. • Fact: Female cottontails line their nest with their own fur to warm their litter. • Predators: Raccoons, hawks, owls, snakes, & weasels.

Golden-mantled Squirrel (Spermophilus lateralis)

• Key Features: Head and neck coppery red with a grizzled brown back. A broad white stripe runs down each of its side. Bushy tail with black center and whitish bottom. • Size & Weight: 9-11” long. Up to 8 oz. • Range & Habitat: In upper montane and subalpine areas. Inhabits burrows on the forest floor or rocky slopes. • Food: Mainly leaves, fungi, and seeds on the ground. • Fact: The most common type of ground squirrel. These avoid eating seed still hanging on to vegetation in order to avoid competition from other types of rodents. • Predators: Coyotes, weasels, & hawks.

American Pika (Ochotena princeps)

• Key Features: Short body with rounded ears and face. Small legs with an almost indistinguishable tail. Pelage reddish and grey. • Size & Weight: 6.5-8” long. Up to 6.5 oz. • Range & Habitat: Mostly in subalpine regions. In rock slides or mountain tali. • Food: Pikas gather long stems of grasses and herbs near rockslides and carries them into its shelter to dry. It can sometimes store over a cubic yard of this “hay”. This is especially useful for overwintering. • Fact: Pikas are extremely solitary, only meeting others to mate. A density of 6 pikas per acre is typical. • Predators: Weasels & hawks.

Mountain Pocket Gopher (Thomomys monticola)

• Key Features: Stocky body with a blunt head, long incisors. Small ears and eyes. Long and slender foreclaws with a short tail. Short smooth pelage that is light or dark brown. • Size & Weight: 8-9” long. Up to 6 oz. • Range & Habitat: In areas with deep soils or moist meadows where they can dig tunnels. • Food: Primarily roots and bulbs found underground but sometimes green leaves and stems in the summer. • Fact: Mountain gophers are almost never seen as they live most of their life underground in their extensive tunnel systems. Occasionally, a patient and very quiet observer can watch one emerge from their holes early in the morning to gather a leaf or stem. • Predators: Snakes, coyotes, badgers, weasels & owls.

Credits & References:

Cover Illustration Black, Laurel. Black Bear. Laurel Black Design.

Fauna Information Storer,Tracey I., Robert L. Usinger and David Lukas, Sierra Nevada Natural History (c) 2004 by the Regents of the University of California. Published by the University of California Press.

Images of Mammals Colla, Phillip. Oceanlight Photography.

Images of Predatory Birds Grey, Tom., Eric Preston, & Point Blue Conservation Science Pocket Guide to Birds of the Sierra Nevada Foothills by Point Blue Conservation Science