Mountain lions face greater risk of becoming roadkill in wildfire’s aftermath, study says
By Jennifer Brooks
The Associated Press
Jun 15, 2020
The road in the background is where a mountain lion killed a person in 2010 (Photo: Michael S. Murphy/Flickr)
The road in the background is where a mountain lion killed a person in 2010 (Photo: Michael S. Murphy/Flickr)
By Jennifer Brooks, Associated Press
FRANKFURT, Germany, June 13 (Xinhua) — Mountain lions face greater risk of being roadkill in the aftermath of wildfires, a study said Friday.
The risk was even greater on the roadways of California after the state declared a fire-fighting state of emergency last Sunday to deal with the Camp Fire, which has killed at least 79 people and destroyed more than 3,000 homes in the area.
“We found that mountain lions had a higher likelihood to be roadkill in California, compared to the other western states,” Dr. Michael J. Tester, lead author and biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, a conservation group, and his team said in a statement.
“The fires in California have not yet fully passed, and the roads will likely have high concentrations of dead animals in the weeks ahead,” said Tester, noting that animals left to rot on the roadways pose a major threat to the surrounding wildlife.
The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“The roadkill rate increased immediately after the fires and the number of mountain lions killed increased for the first several weeks after fires in California,” said the study, which measured the mountain lion roadkill population on California’s highways.
“This study shows that mountain lions on California’s highways likely faced a greater risk of becoming roadkill, compared to other regions,” added co-author Robert R. Wible, director of the Sierra Nevada Conservation Science Center.
The study looked at three western U.S. states, California, Oregon and Washington, in addition to Nevada and Nevada’s borders.
The researchers also found that the greater risk for mountain lion roadkill occurred in the weeks after the fires, especially on highways, where the density of roadkill increases after the fires.
“When fires rage so intensely, the mountain lions become the victims of the flames.
