Research overview: cougar predation impacts on endangered prey

An overview of cases where puma predation, though ecologically natural, poses risks to endangered or reintroduced prey populations. Examples include predation on woodland caribou, bighorn sheep, and reintroduced or remnant ungulate herds, where small population size makes even modest predation consequential. This survey synthesizes how habitat alteration and elevated primary prey, such as deer, can subsidize pumas and raise predation pressure on declining secondary prey through apparent competition, and the difficult management trade-offs that result. It connects to theory on shared predation and hyperpredation and to conservation conflicts over predator control. The topic highlights how landscape change can reshape predator-prey relationships so that an unmanaged native cat becomes a threat to imperiled prey, complicating multi-species conservation.