Fearful encounters reduce feeding time, driving up predation
on deer in human-dominated landscapes
Date: June 20, 2017
Source: University of California - Santa Cruz
"Fraidy cat" isn't the way most people think of
mountain lions, but when it comes to encounters with humans, perhaps they
should.
New research into the behavior of these big cats indicates
that they don't like encountering humans any more than we like bumping into
them on hiking trails. The findings are particularly valuable as human
development encroaches on lion habitat and drives up the number of human-puma
encounters.
"We exposed pumas in the Santa Cruz mountains to the
sound of human voices to see if they would react with fear and flee, and the
results were striking: They were definitely afraid of humans," said
Justine Smith, lead author of the paper "Fear of the human 'super
predator' reduces feeding time in large carnivores," published in the June
21 online edition of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
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