Big city life: carnivores in urban environments

This widely cited review examined how carnivores exploit cities, surveying which traits predispose species to urban living and how urban carnivores differ in diet, ranging, activity and behaviour from rural counterparts. The authors highlighted dietary flexibility, behavioural boldness, smaller home ranges and altered activity as recurring features of successful urban carnivores, drawing on examples from foxes and coyotes to felids. The review framed cities as a distinctive selective environment and identified knowledge gaps in how urbanisation reshapes carnivore ecology and human-wildlife conflict. It remains a foundational synthesis for situating urban felids within the broader phenomenon of carnivores colonising the built world.