🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This study established a striking association between exposure to anticoagulant rodenticides and severe notoedric mange in bobcats and mountain lions across urban southern California. Necropsies and t…

Riley SPD, Bromley C, Poppenga RH, Uzal FA, Whited L, Sauvajot RM · Journal of Wildlife Management · 2007

This population-viability analysis integrated demographic data, genetic measures and landscape connectivity for the small puma population isolated in the Santa Monica Mountains within metropolitan Los…

Benson JF, Mahoney PJ, Sikich JA, Serieys LEK, Pollinger JP, Ernest HB, Riley SPD · Proceedings of the Royal Society B · 2016

This early conservation-planning study modelled how much habitat and what corridor configuration cougars need to persist in fragmenting southern California landscapes. By analysing demography and move…

Beier P · Conservation Biology · 1993

This radio-telemetry study tracked young cougars dispersing through the developing landscape of southern California, documenting the routes they used, the barriers they faced and the mortality they su…

Beier P · Journal of Wildlife Management · 1995

This camera-trap study examined how a community of carnivores, including bobcats and pumas, was distributed across an urbanisation gradient in southern California, relating species occurrence and rich…

Ordenana MA, Crooks KR, Boydston EE, Fisher RN, et al · Journal of Mammalogy · 2010

Building on long-term monitoring of pumas around Los Angeles, this study modelled how genetic and demographic factors could interact to drive small, urbanization-isolated populations toward an extinct…

Benson JF, Mahoney PJ, Vickers TW, Sikich JA, Beier P, Riley SPD, Ernest HB, Boyce WM · Ecological Applications · 2019

This experimental study demonstrated that the mere sound of human voices induced fear responses cascading from pumas down to mice in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Playback of human speech caused pumas to…

Suraci JP, Clinchy M, Zanette LY, Wilmers CC · Ecology Letters · 2019

Using genetic samples from pumas across southern California, this study revealed that freeways and urban development had carved the regional population into fragments with reduced gene flow and signs…

Ernest HB, Vickers TW, Morrison SA, Buchalski MR, Boyce WM · PLoS ONE · 2014

This camera-trap study in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California examined how mesopredators adjusted their spatial and temporal activity in response to both pumas and human development. The authors fo…

Wang Y, Allen ML, Wilmers CC · Biological Conservation · 2015

High-resolution GPS tracking combined with accelerometers and other biologgers has transformed the study of how felids behave near people, enabling fine-scale analysis of movement, activity, energetic…

P-22 became the most famous urban mountain lion in the world after crossing two of the busiest freeways in the United States to settle in Griffith Park, a small island of habitat surrounded by central…

Pumas living near urban areas adjust where, when and how they move, feed and rest in response to human presence and the built environment. This overview synthesises telemetry and GPS-cluster research,…

Climate change interacts with urbanisation to reshape the conditions felids face near cities, altering prey availability, water resources, heat exposure, fire regimes and the viability of corridors. T…

From leopards in Mumbai to pumas in Los Angeles, caracals in Cape Town and fishing cats in Colombo, a remarkable diversity of felids inhabits the worlds cities, offering a comparative window on urban…

Juvenile cougar dispersal, the long-distance movements by which young animals find new territories and exchange genes, is sharply constrained in landscapes fragmented by roads and development around s…

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 a…

The puma population of the Santa Monica Mountains is hemmed in by freeways and the Pacific Ocean, producing one of the most acute cases of urban carnivore genetic isolation on record. This overview sy…

When urban felid populations become severely inbred, genetic rescue, the introduction of individuals or gene flow from other populations, can restore diversity and demographic vigour. This overview sy…

Vehicle collisions are a leading direct cause of death for felids in human-dominated landscapes worldwide, from pumas on Los Angeles freeways to leopard cats on Taiwan rural roads and fishing cats in…

Documented first in southern California felids and later in Cape Town caracals, anticoagulant-rodenticide exposure in wild cats has emerged as a global phenomenon wherever predators hunt poisoned rode…

In freeway-bounded puma populations around Los Angeles, killing of pumas by other pumas is an unusually frequent cause of death, a pattern biologists link to compressed home ranges and the inability o…

Landscape genetics, combining molecular markers with spatial models, has become essential for detecting how roads and development fragment felid populations and for prioritising connectivity. This ove…

Many urban felid populations centre on protected areas embedded in or abutting cities, from Sanjay Gandhi National Park to Griffith Park and Table Mountain National Park, making the park-city interfac…

How urban felids are portrayed in media and perceived by the public strongly influences tolerance, policy and conservation outcomes. This overview synthesises social-science research on news framing o…

Population viability analysis integrates demography, genetics and connectivity to project the persistence of small felid populations isolated by urbanisation, guiding conservation triage and intervent…

During his time in Griffith Park, the Los Angeles puma P-22 developed notoedric mange and was found to have been exposed to anticoagulant rodenticides, mirroring a pattern documented in regional bobca…

The effectiveness of wildlife crossings depends partly on shielding animals from the light and noise of adjacent traffic, factors that can deter wary felids from using overpasses and underpasses. This…

The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing is among the largest wildlife overpasses in the world, built to span a major multi-lane freeway northwest of Los Angeles and reconnect puma and other wildlife po…

For pumas living in and around Los Angeles, collisions with vehicles on freeways and surface roads are among the most frequent documented causes of death. This overview synthesises telemetry-based mor…

Wild felids living near cities are exposed to pathogens including feline immunodeficiency virus, feline leukemia virus and others, sometimes shared with domestic cats, raising conservation and One Hea…