Oh my: 'Mountain lions are terrified by the voices of Rush Limbaugh and Rachel Maddow'

[hlthe2b]

Perhaps we have a split in party among Mountain Lions...


Mountain lions are terrified by the voices of Rush Limbaugh and Rachel Maddow
Researchers trying to understand a potent and profound new force in the lions’ world: fear.

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Nighttime in the Santa Cruz mountains. A mountain lion sprawls on the forest floor, happily noshing on a freshly killed deer. The wind in the trees is the only sound, the moon the only illumination.

Then political commentator Rachel Maddow’s voice fills the clearing: “Last Friday, three days after Bobby Jindal quit . . .” The lion lifts its head, and its eyes, glowing in the scant light, look right toward a hidden camera. Then the creature turns tail and flees. It’s gone before Maddow even finishes her sentence.

Over the course of several nights, this scene repeated again and again at different locations in the mountains of central California. Unbeknown to the big cats, scientists from the University of California at Santa Cruz had installed motion-sensitive cameras at “kill sites” — spots where the lions stash the carcasses of their prey so they can extend the meal for days.

--more--

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/06/22/mountain-lions-rush-limbaugh-rachel-maddow/

[marylandblue]

1. Why did the researcher use political commentators?

Wouldn't it make more sense to use ordinary human conversation?

[hlthe2b]

2. the article onll states they wanted to look at the behavioral changes to human-induced fear.

I don't know, beyond that.