Frequently Asked Questions

Common names for the species Puma concolor include mountain lion, puma, cougar, lion, catamount, and panther. The scientific name for cougars is Puma concolor, which refers to their uniform coat color – concolor means “of the same color” in latin. In fact, there are so many unique and regionally specific names for cougars that the species holds the Guinness World Record for mammal with the most common names — between multiple indigenous languages, English, Spanish, and Portuguese cougars have 84 recorded names.

Cougars are almost uniformly beige with a cream-colored belly and dark markings on both sides of their muzzle. The back tip of the ears and tip of the tail are black. Cougars are only spotted as kittens, and have rounded ears and long thick tails (the tail is nearly as long as the body). Adult cougars in California tend to weigh between 70 and 150 lbs.

Cougars, bobcats, and house cats all belong to the family Felidae but vary considerably in size and appearance. Cougars are the largest felid in California weighing between 70 and 150 lbs, while bobcats are only 12 to 25 lbs on average, and domestic cats are even shorter and smaller than bobcats.

Bobcat ears are pointy with a tuft of hair on the top, and are black with a noticeable white spot on the back. Bobcats also have a ruff of fur on their face, banding on their legs and face, and a short bobbed tail with a white underside. Cougar ears are more rounded with no tuft on the top, and tend to be solidly black-tipped, though some individuals can have lighter, almost white, patches of hair on the lower-mid back side. Cougar tails are long and the tip of the tail is solid black all the way around.

A bobcat’s tail is much shorter than its body, while a cougar’s tail is as long as its body. Domestic cats can have long or short tails so their size and variety of coat colors are the most reliable cues for distinguishing them from wild felids.

For a visual representation of the differences between cougars, bobcats, and domestic cats, check out this graphic created by the National Park Service.

Cougars can be spotted any time day or night as they move throughout their ranges. Spotting a cougar during the day does not suggest abnormal behavior or that there is a threat to public safety. Cougars are often more active at night or during crepuscular times, around sunrise and sunset. Where people live and recreate, cougars may be more nocturnal (active at night).

Individual cougars, like people, can also vary significantly in their activity patterns. 

Two adult male cougars studied by the National Park Service, P-22 and P-41, occupied home ranges in isolated natural areas, and they altered their behavior relative to developed areas by time-of-day more than other animals.

In California, average cougar home range sizes can range from a little over 30 to a little under 300 square miles depending on the sex and age of the cougar as well as geographic region. Coastal home ranges tend to be smaller and exhibit less seasonal fluctuations in size than inland home ranges.

Male cougars have much larger home ranges than do female cougars – generally two to three times as large – regardless of habitat type.

The National Park Service (NPS) in the Santa Monica Mountains recorded the smallest known adult male cougar home range size for cougar P-22 at 9 square miles. Another local cougar, P-41’s home range is just 21 square miles. Their small respective habitat fragments are hemmed in Griffith Park and the Verdugo Mountains. The home range sizes for all other cougars studied by NPS in the Santa Monica Mountains region averaged 143 square miles for adult males and 51 square miles for adult females, similar to those reported by other cougar studies in the western United States.

Cougar territoriality ensures a generally stable abundance of individuals in any given area. Males do not generally tolerate other males in their range, and females are similarly territorial with other females. Although cougars will sometimes tolerate close relatives overlapping their range, their territoriality coupled with large home range sizes for both sexes results in low population density and a relatively maintained abundance overall.

Dispersal occurs when a cougar leaves the territory of its mother to establish a new territory, sometimes in very faraway lands. The process of dispersal can be much harder for subadult male cougars because they must travel greater distances and face greater danger from intraspecific strife — conflict between cougars that is often deadly — than females whose presence is more often tolerated by other cougars.

Successful dispersal contributes to higher genetic diversity in two ways. First, and most importantly, when dispersers come into a population from a different one, they can bring added genetic diversity if those populations are genetically differentiated. The other way is by reducing opportunities for relatives to breed with one another, which can occur in areas where cougar populations become isolated by roads and development and dispersal is “frustrated.” In Southern California, cougar populations in the Santa Ana (SAM) and Santa Monica Mountains (SMM) cannot effectively disperse due to urban development and highways that separate them from adjacent natural areas. Inbreeding has led to dangerously low genetic diversity in these populations.

Extinction risk for these cougars is comparable to that faced by Florida panthers (Puma concolor coryi), an endangered and genetically isolated cougar subspecies in the Southeastern United States, in the early 1990’s. In this situation, Texas cougars were translocated into the region to prevent extinction from inbreeding depression. Translocation is financially costly, dangerous for the animals, and was used as a last resort to prevent the extinction, and it should not be viewed as a universally applicable solution to the problems faced by isolated cougar populations.

Although there are similarities between what happened to the Florida panther and the situation facing some isolated cougar subpopulations in Southern California, there is one big difference between the scenarios. In California, there are still other viable populations in the state, and that could potentially be connected to those that are isolated, while the cougar population in Florida was and still is the only one that exists in the Eastern United States. Since there are substantial populations of cougars persisting in the West, conservation experts currently recommend increasing habitat connectivity in the region to promote natural gene flow through dispersal, rather than importing cougars from other areas.

As apex predators, cougars can have various effects on the species they prey upon. Their influence on prey behavior can in turn affect and structure other aspects of the ecosystem. Kills made by predators also attract a diverse crowd of scavengers, including mammals, birds, and insects. We do not fully understand all of the ways cougars may affect deer (their main prey species), other smaller mammals, or scavenger communities. However, it has been found in multiple studies that deer populations unregulated by predators can have drastic effects on the structure of their environment by overgrazing otherwise stable vegetative communities. 

An umbrella species is one with expansive habitat requirements that when conserved will also protect a multitude of other species that share the same habitat.

In Southern California, the protection of genetically distinct cougar populations has required the conservation of approximately 4,000 square miles of natural habitats, including one of only 36 “biodiversity hotspots” in the world. Cougars in the Santa Monica Mountains serve as an umbrella species for 50 mammal, 35 reptile and amphibian, almost 400 bird species, and over 1,000 plant species.

Cougars are one of the most wide-ranging terrestrial species in the world and are found in 28 countries throughout the Americas. Cougars still range from as far north as Alaska to as far south as Chile, but the species is thought to be in decline in some regions due to habitat loss and fragmentation, hunting, and retaliatory killings as a result of depredation events. The current range of cougars within the continental United States is only 60% of its original size prior to European colonization.

Cougars’ ability to survive and reproduce is not only dependent on the availability of suitable habitat, prey, and demographic factors, but is also directly influenced by people’s willingness to live alongside cougars.

California: The California Department of Fish and Wildlife estimates that cougar populations can occupy approximately 63,000 to 67,000 square miles in California, but only about half of this area is currently protected from development. 

In the 1990s, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife estimated there to be 4,000 to 6,000 cougars populating California. They have since recognized that this is likely a great overestimate of current occupancy in the state. Research efforts by CDFW staff are currently underway to update this estimate based on current knowledge of the statewide distribution of deer populations and usable natural habitat.

It is important to recognize that all population estimates are only approximations, and that it is especially difficult to get solid numbers on an elusive and wide-ranging species without markings that can be used to clearly identify individual animals.

In 2014, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classified cougars globally as a population of “Least Concern,” while noting the population trend as “declining” in some regions.

No. Cougar populations never get above certain very low densities because they are territorial and have very large home ranges. Cougar population size is directly linked to available prey and habitat, but even when prey is abundant, interactions between cougars of the same sex keep their population densities low.

Dispersal is a key behavior that enables populations to turn over and maintain genetic diversity. 

In Southern California, lack of habitat connectivity increases the risk of dispersing cougars being struck by cars, which is the number one source of mortality for adult cougars in the region, and a significant threat to the viability of populations in the Santa Monica and Santa Ana Mountains.

No. Cougars are territorial and generally solitary. Mothers and their dependent offspring do travel together until the young disperse at 12-18 months, so it is possible to see multiple animals together sometimes. Moreover, cougars have huge home ranges (about 50 square miles for females and 150 square miles for males), so any particular location is a tiny fraction of where they live. They will sometimes be in one area for a few days if they have made a kill there, but they will then move on, and can be many miles away in a single night.

In general, cougars rarely enter developed areas. However, individuals may do so on rare occasions, especially younger animals that may be dispersing and looking for new home ranges.

Throughout most of the cougar’s range, deer represent cougars’ preferred prey, but this can vary by region and what type of prey is most abundant. There are cougar populations that specialize in other ungulate species besides deer such as bighorn sheep, wild pigs, elk, and even wild horses. Cougars, like many carnivore species, are also intraguild predators, meaning they are known to consume coyotes, raccoons, foxes, and bobcats.

Cougars in the Santa Monica Mountains consume a deer a week on average. As of 2021, National Park Service researchers have analyzed more than 700 kills in the Santa Monica Mountains and Simi Hills, of which 87% were mule deer while the second-most common prey was coyote and then raccoon.

In general, cougars have a much less specific breeding time than most carnivores and can reproduce throughout the year. Cougars in areas that experience harsh winters may have a more restrictive breeding season, and reproductive timing can also be influenced by prey abundance and climate. Most cougar kittens are born between April and September in North America. Cougars in Southern California breed all year round because the climate is so consistent. 

Cougars are the only large carnivore in many areas in Southern California, and are the main predator on the area’s dominant herbivore, the mule deer. Many areas also have black bears, which are also considered a large carnivore based on size, but black bears are omnivorous and are not regular predators on deer. As such, cougars are an apex predator, and often the only apex predator in their Southern California ranges – in other words, they are at the top of their food chain and have no natural predators.

Apex predators can have various effects on the species they prey on, including prey behavior, which in turn can affect and structure other aspects of the ecosystem. Kills made by predators also attract a diverse crowd of scavengers, including mammals, birds, and insects. We do not fully understand all of the ways cougars may affect deer (their main prey species) or other smaller carnivores like coyotes, bobcats, and raccoons, or scavenger communities. However, given that cougars are the only apex predator species in Southern California, losing them and whatever roles they may play is not an experiment we want to conduct.