Ghostwalker: Tracking a Mountain Lion's Soul through Science and Story

by Leslie Patten, Harley G. Shaw (foreword)

Leslie Patten had seen grizzly bears, wolves, coyotes, deer, elk, and many other species in her years living next to Yellowstone National Park. Yet, like most visitors, she had never seen a mountain lion—the charismatic yet enigmatic predator also known as a cougar, panther, or puma. She had only detected their ethereal presence on the landscape, which left her pondering where they were and what they were up to. After five years, through her serendipitous encounters with their tracks and scat, the burning question What is the essence of the mountain lion?

To understand an animal no one sees, Patten conducted more than one hundred interviews with biologists, conservation groups, state wildlife managers, houndsmen, and professional trackers. Slowly, a picture of the lion’s elusive nature emerged. Ghostwalker presents a complete picture of mountain lions in the West today, uncovering the intimacies of their secretive lifestyle as well as the issues they face in our changing world.
 

311 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 1, 2024

About the author

Leslie Patten has an unusual combination of experience that allows her to write her new book The Wild Excellence. She is a published author of Biocircuits: Amazing New Tools for Energy Health. She also has written several eBooks on gardening, and has kept an online blog journal for many years on wildlife issues from her home in the remote regions next to Yellowstone National Park.

Leslie has worked with land her entire life. She is an avid gardener, and still practices as a professional landscape designer in Marin County, California. She has a degree in horticulture, a certificate of design from The San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum, as well as two years of formal naturalist training from the College of Marin. She spent over five years working with elementary school children in Muir Woods National Monument and Muir Beach, teaching them about ecology and the natural world. She also worked on a three year spotted owl study conducted by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area locating owl nest sites and conducting chick counts. Patten is a member of the Marin County Tracking Club and spent over thirteen years in a spiritual community studying meditation.

Since moving to Wyoming in 2005, she has helped on wolf, elk and grizzly bear studies, as well as The Gloria Project, a climate change study, in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. She volunteers at the Draper Natural History lab of the Buffalo Bill Museum of the West preparing museum quality specimens of birds and mammals. Leslie enjoys hiking with her dog Koda and exploring the Greater Yellowstone Area.