Research overview: roads as a leading cause of puma mortality

In fragmented and urbanizing landscapes, vehicle collisions rank among the foremost causes of death for pumas, and this overview synthesizes telemetry-based survival studies documenting the toll. GPS collars with mortality sensors have repeatedly traced cat deaths to highways, especially for dispersing juveniles forced to cross busy roads in search of territory. The overview discusses how road mortality interacts with the barrier effect: roads both kill animals attempting to cross and deter others, compounding genetic isolation. It also covers how cause-specific mortality data, drawn from prompt investigation of collared carcasses, quantify the relative importance of roads versus other threats. This evidence underpins the case for crossing structures, fencing, and speed mitigation, framing roads as a dual threat that telemetry has made impossible to ignore in puma conservation.