The Mountain Lions Reduce Road Accidents

Is there any benefit to living alongside predators in the same area? The drawbacks may seem intuitively obvious, since anyone living near these fierce creatures could simply fall prey to them. However, ecologists see this as an invaluable opportunity to monitor conservation efforts for living species, or to ensure that certain animals remain far from the brink of extinction.

But a research team in the United States found, in a study published in the scientific journal Cell Press, which specializes in wildlife sciences, and reported by the German News Agency (dpa) today, that large predators offer a direct benefit to human communities: they help reduce road accidents.

Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Partners in Conservation Science Institute in Washington state, USA, said after studying the impact of mountain lions in Washington’s Olympic Peninsula region that the presence of these predators—a feline species native to North America—has altered the behavior of deer and elk in the area, positively affecting the rate of vehicle collisions with wildlife on highways.

Justin Suraci, head of the study team and director of the institute, said: “We found that large predators make roads safer by influencing the behavior of their prey and the areas they occupy in wild spaces.”