Mountain lions face greater risk of becoming roadkill in wildfire’s aftermath, study says
The number of mountain lions killed by cars in the western United States is on the rise
Lions are being hit harder and dying younger in the wildfire outbreak, according to a survey of their deaths in the West’s wildlands
A dramatic rise in the number of deaths has occurred between early November 2017 and early February 2018, in an area that is home to the largest numbers of the state’s mountain lions, a study of mountain lion deaths in the West’s wildlands has found.
This is the first time a population-wide study of mountain lions’ deaths has been conducted in the West since mountain lions lost nearly half their populations by the late 1990s. It also marks the first time a population-wide study of mountain lion deaths has been conducted outside the Rocky Mountain front.
The study, published in the peer reviewed journal Diversity and Distributions, used data collected between January and June 2017 on the deaths of about 2,900 adult male mountain lions living in four western states.
Mountain lion roadkill in the West is a new problem for conservationists, who have not been able to prevent the roadkill since lions lost 40 to 60 percent of their western range in the 1980s and early 1990s.
“We’re seeing a lot more mountain lion roadkill and a bigger population of mountain lions in these mountain lion ‘hot spots’ is due to the wildfires,” said lead author Ryan D. DeJarnette, a doctoral candidate at the California Institute of Technology, who also conducted the study as a faculty member at Northern Arizona University. A report on the study was published Feb. 4 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“It used to be that the roadkill was a problem because of human interactions with lions and they killed a few calves every year. But now, when we turn away, and we’re seeing some population recovery, the roadkill is a problem,” DeJarnette said.
The study was the result of a collaboration between Northern Arizona University (NAU); the Southwest Research and Information Center (SWRIHC); the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS