Chris Wilmers is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at UC Santa Cruz. He is a wildlife ecologist who studies how global change (climate change, habitat alteration and human hunting) influences animal behavior, population dynamics and community organization. Wilmers is the founder and lead researcher for the Santa Cruz Puma Project - the most comprehensive study ever done on Northern California cougars. Since 2008, Wilmers and his team of researchers have fitted mountain lions in Norther California with specially designed collars affixed with radio telecommunications, global positioning and an accelerometer device, which uses software similar to that found in interactive video games to record activities like pouncing and even mating.