Pumas in Snow

This was my favorite wildlife photo from last year, a magical encounter that occurred during my Patagonia tour.  We were returning to our hotel in Torres del Paine at the end of the day when we were treated with an early autumn snowfall.  Naturally, we started joking (secretly hoping) that we'd find a puma to photograph in the snow... and then it happened.

Our driver spotted an adult cat peeking out from this colorful bush, in the middle of a stand of trees that had been torched by a wildfire a few years back.  Because we were in the national park, we could not venture off-road, so we were very fortunate this scene was within photo range.  It couldn't have been a better setting, but then we got bonus cubs peeking out too!  I had to shoot a lot of images, because I was worried that the thick, wet flakes would obscure detail in the cats.  Luckily, a few shots turned out.

Canon 1DX
Canon 600mm f/4 IS
ISO 1600
1/250th
f/4

Max

Incidentally, the question of baiting has been raised, both here on NPN and elsewhere, in regards to the pumas of this region.  I will state that I have never seen any evidence of baiting during my cat encounters.  Because many of the pumas roam private land bordering the national park (where many photographers find them, and where maybe half of my encounters have occurred), I can't eliminate the possibility that it happens... but I've never seen any sign of it during my trips.  There's a very healthy food source in the region, with guanacos roaming everywhere and no competition from other predators, so it makes sense that a dense population of these cats can be sustained in a relatively small area.  Of the ~50 encounters I've had the last two years, maybe three involved a guanaco carcass of any sort, and to my knowledge they were all legitimate cat kills that occurred the night before.  Only once did I see a puma hunt domestic sheep on the ranch land neighboring the park (the hunt failed when a vehicle pulled up on the road right when the cat made its move), so to date I've never seen these cats feeding on a domestic animal.