Frequently Asked Questions

By regulating the movement patterns of more abundant prey species, cougars exert a strong influence over the structure and function of California's ecosystems that is disproportionate to their small population size. Cougars' preferred prey is deer, whose feeding patterns impact plant communities other species rely on. Cougars also influence scavenging mammal, bird, invertebrate, and soil microorganism communities by providing "leftovers" of essential nutrients from kills.

California Example: Conserving cougars in the Santa Monica Mountains is crucial to the maintenance of the region's landscape and wildlife communities. The Santa Monica Mountains represent one of the world's rare biodiversity hotspots which is home to 50 mammal, 35 reptile and amphibian, almost 400 bird, and over 1,000 plant species. 

In small, genetically isolated cougar subpopulations at risk of extinction, every individual counts toward the overall viability of the subpopulation. 

This is particularly true for reproductive adults, especially adult males. The home range of 1 adult male cougar overlaps with those of approximately 3 female cougars that may or may not be related to one another. 

This bias in the sex ratio, along with the higher risk of male cougar mortalities from human causes (like vehicle strikes and depredation permits taken-out on dispersing individuals) or other cougars, and the possibility of random events like wildfires, makes occasional male extinctions possible. If this occurs, emergency interventions such as translocation may be necessary as a last-ditch effort to prevent extinction. 

Cougar activity may occasionally occur near people’s homes if they are located in or near natural habitat, but this is not inherently a threat to public safety. Most cougars avoid coming near people even if our backyards sometimes fall within their home ranges.

Cougars that venture close to development do so almost exclusively at night, likely to reduce the risk of encountering people. Research suggests that cougars perceive interactions with people to be highly threatening. With awareness and the proper coexistence tools, people can safely reside in cougar habitat. 

If you live in cougar habitat and have small children, ensure they are closely supervised while outdoors. If you must house domestic animals outdoors in cougar habitat, housing them in cougar-proof enclosures at night is crucial for preventing conflicts and the loss of pets and livestock. Avoid leaving free roaming domestic animals unattended as depredation can occur at any time of day or night.

Cougar presence is closely tied to that of their prey. Cougar prey species such as deer, coyotes, and raccoons are present on the urban edge, as residential areas with nearby natural cougar habitat can provide ample access to refuge and feeding opportunities. 

Individual cougars, like people, vary in their propensity to explore novel environments. Subadult animals of both sexes may be more likely to pass through residential areas as they look for paths to disperse to new areas.

In the Santa Monica Mountains, research has shown that cougar locations are closer to development than we would expect by chance, which may be because their prey species are more common in or near developed areas. It is important to remember though that overall, cougars very rarely use urban areas. Analysis of the first 15 years of cougar research in the Santa Monica Mountains found that less than 1% of recorded locations of adult cougars were in developed areas, and that the average distance of cougars from developed areas was greater than 1 km.

For females, deer kill sites were also closer to development than expected, while male kill sites were closer to riparian woodlands, in natural cougar habitat. Adult females and sub-adults may hunt deer closer to developed areas in part to avoid aggression from adult males.

Eliminating attractants and taking actions to exclude cougar prey species will help prevent conflicts with cougars that do venture into our neighborhoods.

Across the globe, wild mammals coexisting with people are becoming increasingly nocturnal, or almost exclusively active at night. This strategy enables wildlife to use the same space as people by timing their activity with human avoidance. Cougars are no exception to this rule, but this does not mean that daytime interactions are impossible. 

Exposure to intense human daytime activity combined with light pollution in urban or urbanizing areas has profoundly impacted the behavior and evolutionary trajectories of many species of wildlife, but large mammalian carnivore species such as cougars are most affected by this. 

Cougar activity near people’s homes is not inherently a threat to public safety. While cougars may occasionally utilize urban interface areas, most tend to avoid coming near peoples’ homes. Cougars that do venture close to development tend to do so almost exclusively at night, likely to reduce the risk of encountering people.

Cougars tend to avoid people despite our neighborhoods sometimes harboring more abundant prey resources than adjacent natural habitat. In Colorado, cougars were more likely to hunt near residences when they had gone longer without recent success. This suggests that they don’t prefer to use these areas and may perceive interactions with people to be highly threatening. 

In reality, humans are a much greater threat to cougars than they are to us. Cougars are frequently in close proximity to humans in residential and recreational park areas like in the Santa Monica Mountains, where instances of cougar aggression are virtually absent. 

Excluding deer and other cougar prey species from your backyard is highly effective at deterring cougars from hunting in developed areas. Eliminating attractants, landscaping practices that reduce available cover for wildlife to take refuge, and strategies like planting vegetative species that deer won’t eat, are tools that can be used to prevent human-cougar conflicts which may arise from cougars’ natural hunting behaviors.

California Reporting: If you find a cached animal in the Santa Monica Mountains, Simi Hills, Santa Susana Mountains, Verdugo Mountains, or Griffith Park, please report it to the National Park Service Mountain Lion Study by emailing SAMO_mountainlions@nps.gov or by calling 1-805-370-2317. Make sure to include the location and date of cache sighting, and any photographs you may take of the carcass.

For sightings outside of the above-mentioned areas, you can report via the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (CDFW) Wildlife Incident Reporting system, by getting in touch with your Regional office.

Avoiding the cache site for a week or so to allow the cougar to finish feeding and move on can help reduce conflict with cougars or any other wild animals that might territorially defend a carcass. If the carcass is cached in an unsafe location that may force cougars, pets, and/or people to interact, it is especially important to report your observation.

In some cases, removal of the carcass may be the appropriate action to take. This should be determined by your state Fish and Wildlife biologists or wildlife officers, who may also be able to assist with carcass removal. If a cached carcass is on a property and must be removed to prevent conflict, individuals of that property are financially responsible for carcass removal. Individuals with financial barriers may be eligible for the Cougar Conservancy’s Carcass Disposal Program.

Often cougars will return to food cache locations as these sites are associated with hunting success, although most may avoid the vicinity of the cache immediately following the removal of the carcass. Pairing carcass removal with aversive conditioning is only moderately effective at deterring cougars from revisiting kill sites. 

A cougar revisiting a kill site is a natural behavior that should not be cause for alarm. Conflict prevention measures such as cougar-proof enclosures are still highly effective when cougars are hunting and consuming wild prey nearby.

The greatest threat to cougars in Southern California is habitat fragmentation caused by urbanization. Development and roads have turned nature preserves into islands that cougars can rarely escape, making it more likely for them to mate with close relatives (“inbreeding”), attack and kill each other at abnormally high rates, and come into closer contact with people and domestic animals. Human-cougar interactions are often deadly for cougars, potentially resulting in depredation permits, vehicle collision, poisoning, and poaching.

Cougars in the Santa Monica Mountains and Santa Ana Mountains could face extinction in less than 50 years if nothing is done to restore habitat connectivity and promote human-cougar coexistence. In the Santa Monica Mountains, intraspecific strife is the leading cause of death for sub-adult cougars, while vehicle-strikes and rodenticide poisoning accounts for the majority of adult cougar deaths. Vehicle collision and depredation are responsible for most cougar mortalities in the Santa Ana Mountains. Despite depredations occurring, these incidents haven’t been a significant cause of mortality for cougars in the Santa Monica Mountains. Because many impacted community members in this area have positive views toward cougars and are able to get connected with the resources they need to prevent future conflicts, the amount of lethal depredation permits taken-out has been reduced as a result (Domingo, K. March 2022. Cougar Conservancy, personal communication). 

In addition to habitat fragmentation and human-cougar conflict, stochastic events intensified by climate change such as wildfire and drought can further-jeopardize vulnerable cougar subpopulations. Research efforts into how these events impact cougars are currently ongoing, and are a top management priority of the National Park Service and California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Restoring habitat connectivity and reducing human-wildlife conflicts through the promotion of effective coexistence practices can buffer cougar populations from the negative impacts of rapid environmental change that both urbanization and climate change represent.

Restoring habitat connectivity by constructing wildlife crossings, culverts, and other travel corridors is preferred to translocating novel genetics into the isolated subpopulations in the Santa Monica Mountains and Santa Ana Mountains at this time. Translocation can be dangerous to both translocated and resident animals, and ultimately provides only a temporary solution to the genetic isolation problem. Furthermore, translocation of cougars benefits only one species, whereas restoring land connectivity across major freeway barriers is valuable for all species in the area.

Cougars were translocated from Texas to Florida to introduce much needed genetic diversity to the endangered population of the Florida Panthers in the 1990s. This highly controversial decision was made as a last-ditch effort to prevent the extinction of this population. It wasn’t feasible to restore habitat connectivity between Florida panthers and their nearest cougar population in Texas. If connectivity is not restored for small, isolated populations such as those in the Santa Monicas and Santa Anas, and these populations continue to decline, translocation might be considered at some point in the future.