Mountain lions are eating California wild donkeys. Why scientists say this is a good thing
Mountain lions are eating California wild donkeys. Why scientists say this is a good thing
As you will doubtless have heard, the mountain lion population in the Sierra Nevada (and other areas of California) has been in decline for the past 60 years, but some animals are in decline not just because of an influx of cats into their habitat, but because of environmental changes caused by humans.
The most obvious culprit is the human population: we have nearly 8 billion people worldwide, and many Americans live outside their cities, where they’re in contact with more cats. But that’s not the only reason that cats are killing wild donkeys.
Wild donkeys are common in many US states, and they’ve been living there longer than the mountain lions themselves: they’re here when coyotes and foxes came here long before humans.
But mountain lions are the main reason that there are fewer wild donkeys, although they are also in decline to other prey species such as white-tailed deer and mule deer. Scientists have long suspected that mountain lions are driving many extinctions due to more and more cats feeding off of the wild donkies’ kills – which is a problem for these animals as they have to compete for food with the cats.
Wild donkeys are in decline all over the world – not just in parts of the American West.
“I think there are a lot of theories, but this is the first one that I’ve seen that makes sense, and I’ve seen many other theories, but I’ll leave it up to you to decide that one”, says John Bradley of the US Geological Survey. “This just does, for me at least, make a lot of sense”.
How mountain lions are killing the wild donkeys
Wild donkeys are common throughout many US states. One of them, the bighorn sheep – which can weigh as much as 1,000kg – can be killed by a single mountain lion.
But there are others – such as the pronghorn and the mule deer that weigh up to 2,500