" The cougar is, of course, one of the few great hunters left among the ranks of
North American wildlife.  The cougar is now extinct in most of his original range,
but in some areas, particularly in the West, it is doing quite well"

Unlike the wolf, the cougar is a lone hunter. It approaches its prey with stealth
and often attacks from ambush. I imagined this scene somewhere in the
Rocky Mountains. The cougar has been following its quarry, a mule deer,
which has now moved out into the open.The hunter has laid down, not to rest,
but to consider the situation with great intensity.

In the paintinp I have put the cougar's face in the shadows and have played
up the paw which it uses for bringing down its prey. I have tried to increase the
nervous intensity of the mood by emphasizing the snow-covered twigs, creating
scratchy, almost electric imagery. The curving twigs symbolize the cougar's
sheathed claws.
Robert Bateman

- 1988 - Cougar In The Snow -

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