9) Mountain Lions On Treadmills
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Why? Why, why, why? Apparently they wanted to find out how much energy a mountain lion needs to crack on with his everyday shizzle. The information will be used by environmental groups, conservationists, ecologists and the like. If you know what a mountain lion needs to survive, you can estimate how many individuals a certain patch of land can support.
Apparently the mountain lions weren’t too easy to train either. They don’t do much gym stuff in the wild. A copious amount of bribery snacks were involved along with a longer, quieter treadmill so that the mega-kitties didn’t fall off the end or spin out because of the noise.
The hardest bit was getting them to stop looking at their feet. I wish they’d release an outtakes video, I bet it was hilarious.
So there you go. The good, the bad and the ugly of animal experimentation. Some of that was pretty uncomfortable, wasn’t it?
