Research overview: energetic costs of felid life near human development

Living near people imposes hidden energetic costs on felids through interrupted hunting, abandoned kills, vigilance, detours around development and altered activity timing. This overview synthesises accelerometer, GPS-cluster and bioenergetic research, much of it on pumas, quantifying how disturbance raises energy expenditure or forces compensatory increases in kill rates. It examines how these costs translate into demographic consequences and increased predation pressure on prey, linking individual physiology to population and community outcomes. The synthesis frames energetics as a unifying currency for understanding the true price felids pay to share landscapes with humans, beyond the obvious mortality from roads and poisons.