Research overview: puma home-range size across the Americas

Puma home ranges vary widely with prey density, terrain, and sex, among the largest of any solitary cat in prey-poor environments. This overview synthesizes telemetry studies showing that male pumas occupy ranges several times larger than females, overlapping multiple female ranges, and that ranges expand where prey is sparse, such as deserts and high mountains, and contract where deer are abundant. It reviews how the land-tenure system spaces residents through avoidance and scent rather than active defense, and how ranging responds to seasonal prey movements. The synthesis connects spatial ecology to the densities pumas reach in different regions. For enthusiasts it explains why a puma may roam hundreds of square kilometers in harsh country yet far less where deer are plentiful, and how the solitary cat partitions space with neighbors across a continent of varied habitats.