When California Mountain Lions Become City Dwellers

Ever-expanding urban boundaries in California metropolitan areas are bringing some new neighbors to town: mountain lions. Recent tracking efforts show that the large carnivores are showing up in urban areas more than ever, but are also amazingly skilled at avoiding human detection in manmade environments.

As The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

"Mountain lion sightings are still rare - escaping notice is this stalking predator's stock in trade - but we're making it harder for them to avoid us. California has some of the best lion habitat in the nation, but it's rapidly giving way to rampant urbanization. Between 1984 and 2006, urban sprawl claimed nearly 970,000 acres, and now more than 5 million houses border the last wild places."