Research overview: noise, stress physiology and health in urban carnivores

Chronic exposure to anthropogenic noise can elevate stress hormones and impair health and reproduction in wildlife, a pathway potentially affecting urban-edge carnivores. This overview synthesises physiological-ecology research linking noise and broader human disturbance to glucocorticoid stress responses, immune function and condition in carnivores, and the challenge of measuring such effects in free-ranging felids. It examines how chronic sensory and disturbance stress might interact with toxicant exposure and food limitation to compound health burdens on city cats. The synthesis frames stress physiology as a mechanistic link between the noisy, disturbed urban environment and the demographic performance of felid populations.