It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Kenya’s big cats under pressure – cattle push lions away
SAME AS THEY DO TO WOLVES IN NORTH AMERICA
Cattle herds are driving lions and other wildlife away from their habitats in Kenya, even though herders enclose their livestock at night when predators are most active.
On the Kenyan savannah, lions and livestock essentially live in shifts: cattle graze during the day and are enclosed at night when lions are active. Nevertheless, lions are being pushed out of their habitats by large numbers of cattle. This affects both the ecosystem balance and the nature-based tourism on which many Maasai communities in Kenya depend on.
Together with local collaborators, Niels Mogensen recorded different groups of animals – lions, other predators, and grazing livestock – in the Masai Mara Conservancies, a conservation area in southwestern Kenya. The area is roughly the size of Lolland and a large part of Falster and is known for its high lion densities and the annual wildebeest migration.
The Masai Mara is also one of Africa’s most popular tourist destinations, especially for visitors hoping to see the “Big Five” (lions, leopards, rhinos, elephants, and buffalo). Lions in particular are under pressure from the Maasai’s large cattle herds. According to Niels Mogensen, the study is extensive, with a large dataset collected over nine years and covering several conservancies.
“Even though cattle are supervised by herders and brought into enclosures at night when lions become active, the wildlife is still indirectly affected. Lions have a natural fear of cattle and their herders, and as cattle numbers increase, it is the lions that retreat. They simply change their behaviour,” explains Niels Mogensen.
Data collection was carried out by dividing the study area into one-by-one-kilometre grid cells. Each time the researchers drove through a cell, they recorded all lions and livestock and the distance travelled. The data were then analysed using spatial modelling methods, meaning that geographical or spatial factors were taken into account.
Less space creates new problems
Nearly 70 percent of Kenya’s wildlife now lives outside national parks, often in the same areas that local communities use for grazing their cattle. In the community-run Masai Mara conservancies, the goal is for wildlife, tourism, and livestock farming to coexist.
But finding that balance is difficult, says Niels Mogensen.
“Even though lions and cattle are not on the grasslands at the same time, our data show that lions avoid areas where cattle graze. It is very rare for people to kill lions or directly threaten them in the conservancies. Nevertheless, human use of the landscape has created areas that lions are afraid to enter,” he says.
The consequence is that lions have less space to move, creating new problems.
“Lions may be pushed into unsuitable habitats, their ability to reproduce may be affected, and they may be driven into the territories of other lion prides. At the same time, the risk increases that lion prides move closer to villages, creating insecurity.”
Create more refuges
Niels Mogensen points to several solutions, one of the most important being more targeted grazing management.
“The more cattle there are, the harder it becomes for lions to find space. It is therefore crucial that livestock numbers are kept low in areas preferred by lions, especially near rivers and in areas with dense vegetation,” he says.
Another recommendation is to establish clear boundaries for where livestock may graze and to rotate grazing so that some areas experience periods of rest.
“By rotating grazing between different areas, pressure on the most important habitats for lions and other wildlife can be reduced.”
Lions’ safe resting areas should also be better protected. This applies especially to areas along rivers and places with dense bush or forest cover, where lions can hide and rest during the day.
“These areas function as refuges for lions. If they disappear, lions lose some of the last places where they can feel safe,” he explains.
He therefore advises against allowing cattle to graze in these lion refuges and stresses the importance of maintaining a varied landscape.
Use data inmanagement
A third recommendation is to use data more actively in the management of the conservancies. According to Niels Mogensen, knowledge about where lions and livestock actually occur should play a much larger role in grazing planning.
“We now have a detailed picture of how lions respond to livestock. That knowledge should be used directly in management so that grazing decisions are based on evidence rather than assumptions,” he says.
Finally, Niels Mogensen emphasises the need for continued monitoring.
“When lions are pushed into smaller areas, it can have long-term consequences that we do not yet fully understand. That’s why it is important to keep monitoring developments closely,” he says.
Future studies should, among other things, examine how denser populations affect lions’ social structure, pride stability, and cub survival.
Human-driven landscapes of fear for Africa's largest terrestrial predator in human-used conservation landscapes
Saturday, August 12, 2023
The fast, furious, and brutally short life of an African male lion
Peter Lindsey, Research associate, Griffith University,
Duan Biggs, Professor and Chair, Southwestern Environmental Science and Policy, Northern Arizona University,
Alexander Richard Braczkowski, Research Fellow at the Centre for Planetary Health and Resilient Conservation Group, Griffith University
Wed, August 9, 2023 at 9:14 AM MDT·7 min read Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images
The death of a lion in Kenya’s picturesque savannas rarely tugs at people’s hearts, even in a country where wildlife tourism is a key pillar of the nation’s economy. But when one of the most tracked male lions in Kenya’s famous Masaai Mara was killed on 24 July 2023 the world took notice. Known as Jesse, he was killed during a fight with a coalition of three male lions from a rival pride, drawing attention to the brutally risky and dangerous lives of male lions.
Lions are organised in family groups known as a pride. Each pride is comprised of several related lionesses. One or more adult male lions will also be present. In the public imagination, male lions are better known by their popularised image as kings of the jungle. Their bravery, strength, and size (only tigers are larger) fits this profile.
But in reality, male lions live a life far more vulnerable. One in two male lions die in the first year of life. From the moment a male lion is born it faces a gauntlet of challenges – from snakebite and hungry hyenas to infanticide at the hands of other male lions.
If a male lion makes it out of their first year of life, and then to independence at around 3, they leave their pride for a period of nomadism. Nomads lead a dangerous existence, skirting the territories of established male coalitions. Out there on their own, few will make it to the age of 10. A young male lion rests in the branches of a tree in Uganda’s Ishasha sector. This particular cub was the son of a three male coalition of lions.
At no time, it seems, is the male lion safe. We know from the evidence collected by the Kenya Wildlife Trust, resident guides, and tourists that Jesse administered and received many beatings from other male lions. We also know that Jesse, who lived to the ripe old age of 12, was eventually killed by three younger, stronger lions. Life comes full circle: killers frequently become victims themselves, of younger, brasher lions, or those in larger and thus more powerful coalitions.
We base our commentary on the extensive information gathered by conservation organisations, independent scientists and tourism guides working in the Maasai Mara. Information on Jesse has been collected mainly through sightings data compiled by these entities over time.
Often the survival of male lions will be dictated by the size and strength of their coalitions, and the make up of the lion landscape at large. This sometimes has bearing for conservation especially when lions stray out of national parks or when male lions are hunted after leaving the safety of a protected area.
This involves incoming males seeking out and killing the cubs of other males or driving young males away, and attempting to take over prides. Killing cubs accelerates the onset of oestrus in pride females and so is likely to increase the reproductive success of incoming males.
Cubs that survive to independence – around 3 years of age – must leave their pride for a period of nomadism. During this time, they join up with cousins, brothers, and sometimes unrelated males of similar age to form what biologists term ‘coalitions’. The power of coalitions increases dramatically with the size of the group. This power can be defined by the number of different prides these coalitions are likely to rule, the number of offspring they will sire, and the number of times they will successfully be able to defend their prides from violent incursions from neighbouring male lions and their coalitions.
The tradeoff of larger coalitions is a watering down of a male lion’s reproductive opportunities.
Contrastingly, Jesse had only one coalition mate, a lion known as Frank. The two were strong enough to kick out the duo of Dere and Barrikoi from the Offbeat pride in May 2014. After his coalition mate Frank disappeared, Jesse left the Offbeat Pride and led a largely nomadic lifestyle except when he unsuccessfully tried to take over the Rakero pride and even fought with his own son Jesse 2.
The Birmingham coalition of five male lions in the Kruger National Park of South Africa. They regularly clashed with other powerful coalitions including the famed Majingilane lion coalition.
Three laws of the wild
Mate, protect, fight. These are the three tenets most male animals live and die by in the animal kingdom and this could not be truer for male lions. When male lions are in the prime of their lives somewhere between 5 and 9 years of age they will attempt to have as many cubs as they can. And they will do their best to protect and guard over as many prides as possible.
But there is a fine line between holding tenure over many different prides, and successfully being able to defend them and their young. When fights do breakout between male lions they are usually over territorial and breeding rights.
At times they are mere squabbles between coalition mates. At other times, the battles are big enough to cause rifts and splits within coalitions. But in most cases fights are between rival coalitions. During these fights lions engage in a suite of bodily and olfactory engagements including posturing, roaring and growling, swatting, and biting, and even urination and territorial demarcation. Michael, a male lion sits on the Kasenyi Plains with his two sons in Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park. Michael killed multiple litters of cubs in this area during his takeover after leaving the south of the park. For conservation: look to the lionesses
On the plus side, the fascinating pride dynamics and trials and tribulations of individual lions can help capture the public’s imagination and foster a love for the species and other wildlife. Although human pressures are high, Kenya retains a large lion population and a suite of iconic wildlife areas. These assets are a great source of pride for many Kenyans, and rightly so.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. \
Duan Biggs is the Olajos Goslow Chair at Northern Arizona University. Dr Biggs previously received funding from the Australian Research Council and WWF the Luc Hoffmann Institute.
Peter Lindsey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Saturday, October 12, 2024
These 19th century lions from Kenya ate humans, DNA collected from hairs in their teeth shows
Cell Press
image:
The lions’ teeth had been damaged during their lifetimes. Study coauthor Thomas Gnoske found thousands of hairs embedded in the exposed cavities of the broken teeth.
Credit: Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago
By isolating and sequencing DNA in compacted hairs collected from the teeth of two Tsavo lion museum specimens from the 1890s, researchers have found that the historic lions from Kenya preyed on a variety of species, including humans, giraffes, and wildebeests. These so-called “Tsavo Man-Eaters” are estimated to have killed at least dozens of people, including those working along the Kenya-Uganda Railway in the late 1890’s. The findings appear in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on October 11.
“As biotechnologies advance, there are unexpected sources of knowledge, in this case genomics, that can be used to inform about the past,” says Ripan Malhi (@MalhiRipan) of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “Our results inform on the ecology and diet of lions in the past as well as on the impacts of colonization on life and land in this region of Africa.”
“A key part of this study was to create a method to extract and analyze DNA from single hairs of prey species found in the teeth of historical museum specimens,” says Alida de Flamingh (@adeflamingh), also at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “Our analysis showed that the historic Tsavo lions preyed on giraffe, human, oryx, waterbuck, wildebeest, and zebra, and we also identified hairs that originated from lions. This method can be used in many ways, and we hope other researchers will apply it to study prey DNA from other animal skulls and teeth.”
Study co-author Tom Gnoske at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago was the first to consider reconstructing the diet of these historic lions using prey hairs from their skulls, the researchers say. With collaborators in Kenya, he began to identify the hairs using microscopy. While conducting ancient DNA research on other animals at the Field Museum, the University of Illinois team got the idea to add genomics as a complementary approach to the study of those compacted hairs.
The Tsavo lions in the new study had dental injuries, including partially broken canine teeth exposing cavities where hair from their prey built up over time. From those tooth cavities, the researchers extracted DNA from individual hair shafts and tiny clumps of hair fragments. While the DNA in those samples was degraded in ways that are typical for historic or ancient DNA, they were able to piece enough of it back together in some of the samples to identify the species the hair originated from. They ultimately identified six prey species, including giraffe, human, oryx, waterbuck, wildebeest, and zebra.
The DNA data narrowed the giraffe sample down to a subspecies of Masai giraffe from southeast Kenya. The researchers also found Tsavo lion DNA that most closely matched other East African lions from Kenya and Tanzania. The researchers said they were most surprised to find hair from wildebeest, noting that it raises questions about their distribution in the past.
“It suggests that the Tsavo lions may have either traveled farther than previously believed, or that wildebeest were present in the Tsavo region during that time,” de Flamingh said. “The closest grazing area for wildebeest was over 50 miles from where the lions were killed in 1898 at the Tsavo-Athi confluence.”
The researchers say they are excited to explore the findings in even greater detail. For example, they suggest that the layered hairs can allow them to go back in time to reconstruct the lions’ diet at different ages. They suggest that such analysis may offer insight into human-lion conflicts that continue to impact communities in Africa, where lions may prey on wildlife as well as domestic animals and humans. The method also holds promise for studies of even older specimens.
“This methodology can potentially be used on hairs from broken teeth of more ancient carnivores from hundreds to thousands of years ago,” Malhi said. “The method opens up a new avenue of inquiry into the past.”
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This work was supported by the US Department of Agriculture, USAID, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Current Biology (@CurrentBiology), published by Cell Press, is a bimonthly journal that features papers across all areas of biology. Current Biology strives to foster communication across fields of biology, both by publishing important findings of general interest and through highly accessible front matter for non-specialists. Visit http://www.cell.com/current-biology. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.
Credit: Photo copyright Michael Jeffords and Susan Post
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — In 1898, two male lions terrorized an encampment of bridge builders on the Tsavo River in Kenya. The lions, which were massive and maneless, crept into the camp at night, raided the tents and dragged off their victims. The infamous Tsavo “man-eaters” killed at least 28 people before Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson, the civil engineer on the project, shot them dead. Patterson sold the lions’ remains to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago in 1925.
In a new study, Field Museum researchers collaborated with scientists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on an in-depth analysis of hairs carefully extracted from the lions’ broken teeth. The study used microscopy and genomics to identify some of the species the lions consumed. The findings are reported in the journal Current Biology.
The original discovery of the hairs occurred in the early 1990s, when Thomas Gnoske, a collections manager at the Field Museum, found the lions’ skulls in storage and examined them for signs of what they had consumed. He was the first to determine that they were fully grown older adult males — despite being maneless. He also was the first to notice that thousands of broken and compacted hairs had accumulated in exposed cavities in the lions’ damaged teeth during their lifetimes.
In 2001, Gnoske and Julian Kerbis Peterhans, a professor at Roosevelt University and Field Museum adjunct curator, first reported on the damaged condition of the teeth — which they hypothesized may have contributed to the lions’ predation of humans — and the presence of hairs embedded in broken and partially healed teeth. A preliminary analysis of some of the hairs suggested that they were from eland, impala, oryx, porcupine, warthog and zebra.
In the new study, Gnoske and Peterhans facilitated a new examination of some of the hairs. Co-authors Ogeto Mwebi, a senior research scientist at the National Museums of Kenya; and Nduhiu Gitahi, a researcher at the University of Nairobi, conducted the microscopic analysis of the hairs. U. of I. postdoctoral researcher Alida de Flamingh led a genomic investigation of the hairs with U. of I. anthropology professor Ripan S. Malhi. They focused on a separate sample of four individual hairs and three clumps of hairs extracted from the lions’ teeth.
Malhi, de Flamingh and their colleagues are developing new techniques to learn about the past by sequencing and analyzing ancient DNA preserved in biological artifacts. Their work in partnership with Indigenous communities has yielded numerous insights into human migration and the pre- and postcolonial history of the Americas. They have helped develop tools for determining the species and geographic origins of present-day and ancient tusks of African elephants. They have advanced efforts to isolate and sequence DNA from museum specimens and have traced the migration and genomic history of dogs in the Americas.
In the current work, de Flamingh first looked for, and found, familiar hallmarks of age-related degradation in what remained of the nuclear DNA in the hairs from the lions’ teeth.
“To establish the authenticity of the sample we’re analyzing, we look to see whether the DNA has these patterns that are typically found in ancient DNA,” she said.
Once the samples were authenticated, de Flamingh focused on mitochondrial DNA. In humans and other animals, the mitochondrial genome is inherited from the mother and can be used to trace matrilineal lineages through time.
There are several advantages to focusing on mtDNA in hair, the researchers said. Previous studies have found that hair structure preserves mtDNA and protects it from external contamination. MtDNA also is much more abundant than nuclear DNA in cells.
“And because the mitochondrial genome is much smaller than the nuclear genome, it’s easier to reconstruct in potential prey species,” de Flamingh said.
The team built a database of mtDNA profiles of potential prey species. This reference database was compared with mtDNA profiles obtained from the hairs. The researchers took into account the species suggested in the earlier analysis and those known to be present in Tsavo at the time the lions were alive.
The researchers also developed methods for extracting and analyzing the mtDNA from the hair fragments.
“We were even able to get DNA from fragments that were shorter than the nail on your pinky finger,” de Flamingh said.
“Traditionally, when people want to get DNA from hairs, they’ll focus on the follicle, which is going to have a lot of nuclear DNA in it,” Malhi said. “But these were fragments of hair shafts that were more than 100 years old.”
The effort yielded a treasure trove of information.
“Analysis of hair DNA identified giraffe, human, oryx, waterbuck, wildebeest and zebra as prey, and also identified hairs that originated from lions,” the researchers reported.
The lions were found to share the same maternally inherited mitochondrial genome, supporting early reports theorizing that they were siblings. Their mtDNA also was consistent with an origin in Kenya or Tanzania.
The team found that the lions had consumed at least two giraffes, along with a zebra that likely originated in the Tsavo region.
The discovery of wildebeest mtDNA was surprising because the nearest population of wildebeests in the late 1890s was about 50 miles away, the researchers said. Historical reports, however, noted that the lions left the Tsavo region for about six months before resuming their rampage on the bridge-builders’ camp.
The absence of buffalo DNA and the presence of only a single buffalo hair — identified using microscopy — was surprising, de Flamingh said. “We know from what lions in Tsavo eat today that buffalo is the preferred prey,” she said.
“Colonel Patterson kept a handwritten field journal during his time at Tsavo,” Kerbis Peterhans said. “But he never recorded seeing buffalo or indigenous cattle in his journal.”
At the time, the cattle and buffalo populations in this part of Africa were devastated by rinderpest, a highly contagious viral disease brought to Africa from India by the early 1880s, Kerbis Peterhans said.
“It all but wiped out cattle and their wild relatives, including cape buffalo,” he said.
The mitogenome of the human hair has a broad geographic distribution and the scientists declined to describe or analyze it further for the current study.
“There may be descendants still in the region today and to practice responsible and ethical science, we are using community-based methods to extend the human aspects of the larger project,” they wrote.
The new findings are an important expansion of the kinds of data that can be extracted from skulls and hairs from the past, the researchers said.
“Now we know that we can reconstruct complete mitochondrial genomes from single hair fragments from lions that are more than 100 years old,” de Flamingh said.
There were thousands of hairs embedded in the lions’ teeth, compacted over a period of years, the researchers said. Further analyses will allow the scientists to at least partially reconstruct the lions’ diet over time and perhaps pinpoint when their habit of preying on humans began.
The National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Agriculture supported this research.
A genomic study of the maneless Tsavo lions confirmed that they were likely siblings. Pictured: a pair of maneless lions living today in the Tsavo region.
The lions’ teeth were damaged during their lifetimes. Study co-author Thomas Gnoske found thousands of hairs embedded in the exposed cavities of the broken teeth.
Credit
Photo Z94320 courtesy Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago
Hairs embedded in the lions’ teeth included those of zebra, top, and wildebeest, bottom.
The study also identified hairs from two giraffes in the lions’ teeth.
Credit
Painting copyright Velizar Simeonovski, 2024
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In the 1990s, a team from the Kenya Wildlife Service and the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago found a cave that the “man-eater” lions had used in Tsavo, Kenya. The team included Thomas Gnoske, front row, far left; Julian Kerbis Peterhans, front row, far right; and Samuel Andanje, back row, second from left, a KWS research biologist who, with Gnoske and Kerbis Peterhans, coordinated the search for the cave.
Compacted hair in broken teeth reveal dietary prey of historic lions
Article Publication Date
11-Oct-2024
Friday, November 15, 2024
Mountain lions coexist with outdoor recreationists by taking the night shift
How mountain lions in Los Angeles are adjusting to avoid human interactions
University of California - Davis
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P65 walks with her kittens. In a UC Davis study, female mountain lions were generally more active during the day and closer to sunrise, perhaps because they are constrained by avoiding male mountain lions and not able to respond as strongly to recreation.
Mountain lions in greater Los Angeles are proactively shifting their activity to avoid interacting with cyclists, hikers, joggers and other recreationists, finds a study from the University of California, Davis, Cal Poly Pomona and the National Park Service.
The study, published Nov. 15 in the journal Biological Conservation, found that mountain lions living in areas with higher levels of human recreation were more nocturnal than lions in more remote regions who were more active at dawn and dusk. The authors said their findings offer a hopeful example of human-wildlife coexistence amid a large, dense human population.
“People are increasingly enjoying recreating in nature, which is fantastic,” said lead author Ellie Bolas, a Ph.D. candidate in the UC Davis Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology. “This flexibility we see in mountain lion activity is what allows us to share these natural areas together. Mountain lions are doing the work so that coexistence can happen.”
Mountain lions prefer to avoid people, but in a metro area of more than 18 million people, natural areas inhabited by mountain lions and other wildlife are also heavily used by recreationists. To learn whether and how lions were adjusting their activity in response to recreationists, the study authors monitored the movements of 22 mountain lions living in the Santa Monica Mountains and the surrounding region between 2011 and 2018.
The lions were captured and fitted with global positioning system (GPS) and accelerometer collars as part of a long-term study conducted by biologists at Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, a unit of the National Park Service. The authors analyzed the collar data and quantified human recreation in the area using a global database of GPS-tracked activities that users opted to make public.
“These results are really important in that they show how humans may be affecting wildlife in less obvious ways than killing them with vehicles,” said Seth Riley, branch chief for wildlife at the park. “The study also continues to drive home the amazing fact that a population of a large felid predator persists in one of the largest urban areas in the world. That would not be possible if mountain lions weren’t able to adjust to human activity in ways like this.”
How mountain lions respond to more humans
The study showed that Griffith Park hosted the highest levels of recreational activity, while the Santa Susana Mountains and Los Padres National Forest were least active. How did mountain lions respond?
The least nocturnal mountain lion was female P13 in the central and western Santa Monica Mountains. Females, in general, were found to be more active closer to sunrise and during daylight hours as compared to males. The authors say this may be so they can avoid overlapping with male lions, who pose a threat to them and their kittens.
The most nocturnal were two male mountain lions living in small, isolated natural areas with many trails, high levels of recreation, and surrounded by intense development and freeways. Both individuals occupied two of the smallest home ranges ever recorded for adult males. P41, the study’s most nocturnal lion, lived in the Verdugo Mountains, a small mountain range spanning several cities.
The famous “Hollywood Cat,” P22, preferred to stay out of the limelight. P22, who managed to cross two busy freeways as a young lion to earn fame, hearts and a home in active Griffith Park, was the second most nocturnal lion studied. He died in 2022 when he was roughly 12 years old — one of the oldest cats in the study.
The authors said the urban experiences of P41, P22 and others in the study illustrate how, when faced with increased human activity, mountain lions actively seek to avoid people rather than becoming habituated to them.
How people can help
Still, the authors note, this doesn’t mean mountain lions should do all the work. People can help protect themselves and mountain lions by being aware that dawn or dusk is prime time for mountain lion activity. They can also be extra cautious when driving at night, when mountain lions in populated areas are more likely to be active.
Mountain lions in the Los Angeles area deal with many challenges — busy roadways where they’re often killed, wildfires, rodenticide exposure, low genetic diversity and fragmented habitat.
“Even something as innocuous as recreation can add to these other stressors we’re bringing into their lives, potentially by altering the amount of energy they have to expend for hunting and other needs,” Bolas said. “But we can feel a sense of optimism that they are flexible in the timing of their activity. Coexistence is happening, and it’s in large part because of what mountain lions are doing.”
The study’s additional co-authors include Adam Pingatore and Daniel Blumstein of UCLA, Maya Mathur of Harvard Westlake High School, Jeff Sikich of the National Park Service, Justine Smith of UC Davis, John Benson of University of Nebraska and Rachel Blakey of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and UCLA.
The study was supported through funding from the National Science Foundation, National Park Service, La Kretz Center for California Conservation at UCLA, and the UC Davis Graduate Group in Ecology Fellowship.
Ellie Bolas, a PhD Candidate at UC Davis, uses radio telemetry to locate research animals in Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.
One of P13's kittens enjoys a sunrise meal in the Santa Monica Mountains near Los Angeles, California in 2014. P13 was among the least nocturnal lions studied.
P41, the most nocturnal mountain lion in the study, lived in the Verdugo Mountains near Los Angeles, an area with high levels of human recreation.
P22, the well-known "Hollywood Cat," was among the mountain lions of Los Angeles who shifted his activities to be more nocturnal in response to humans.
