A landmark longitudinal study by the National Park Service of mountain lions in the Los Angeles area found that the big cats rarely venture into residential neighborhoods, opting instead for forested landscapes of chaparral and sage bush.
The findings, published in the latest 2021 issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management, were made after researchers combed 15 years of data on cougars in and around the Santa Monica Mountains, according to an NPS press release.
“We have found that it is very rare for mountain lions to venture into the neighborhood,” Jeff Sikich, a wildlife biologist who co-authored the article and is the park service’s project lead field scientist, said in the release. “All in all, only around one percent of the locations were actually in urban areas.”
The big cats also tended to shy away from heavily modified and landscaped areas, including golf courses and cemeteries, according to the story. While the predators may not have advanced into urban development areas, they didn’t necessarily keep a large distance either.
“It was interesting to see that in our analysis of habitat choice, mountain lions were consistently closer to urban development than randomly expected,” Sikich said. “This could be because mule deer, their main prey, may benefit from being around humans.”
And of course mountain lions have been spotted in the neighborhood from time to time.
The data for this particular study is based on 29 adult and subadult mountain lions with GPS collars whose territories are in the Santa Monica Mountains, Simi Hills, Santa Susana Mountains and nearby areas, according to the press release. More than 128,000 locations were used to estimate the size of each cougar’s home range, how it used the land, and which parts of it it avoided.
“Shrub vegetation species, particularly chaparral, have been important in terms of habitat use and resource selection, underscoring their value in conserving the species in Southern California and beyond,” the press release said.
On average, adult males averaged about 144 square miles in size, while adult females averaged 52 square miles — all similar to other areas, according to researchers.
Two notable exceptions to this were the Hollywood mountain lion known as P-22, which has roamed Griffith Park for more than a decade. At just 9 square miles, P-22 has survived in the smallest known home range ever for an adult male cougar, the press release said.
The other mountain lion, P-41, lives in the Verdugo Mountains and its home range is 21 square miles.
Although both males were found to have migrated to residential areas more frequently than other big cats studied, the vast majority of their locations — about 90% — were still in natural areas, according to the press release.
“Interestingly, these two males showed strong selection differences related to time of day that appeared to be responsive to human activity,” said John Benson, the study’s lead author, in the press release. “When we analyzed selection on an individual basis, we found that these two males changed their behavior to avoid built-up and landscaped areas during the day but tend to select for those areas at night.”
P-22 and P-41 are just two of more than 100 mountain lions radio-collared and monitored over the past two decades for the major NPS study of cougars in the region.
LA is just one of two megacities in the world where the big cats live, and biologists have been studying this particular population to see how the animals can survive in the urbanized area, with its extensive freeway system and sprawling real estate developments.
The population faces many challenges, including inbreeding, which threaten their long-term survival in the region.
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