Cougars Lower the Risks of Car Crashes by Hunting Deer

If you’re worried about car accidents caused by deer, you might want to look into bringing some cougars into town.

A study published Wednesday in the journal Current Biology finds that car accidents involving deer in the US could go down as much as 76% in areas where there is a healthy population of the big cats. The presence of cougars around roads cutting through forests or around a development edging up to the woods, the researchers found, made deer avoid these areas, leading to fewer accidents.

Cougars—also called mountain lions, panthers, or pumas—are native to the Americas. But due to habitat loss and hunting their range in North America dropped off considerably following European colonization. Now, cougars are mostly found in the western US states and a small part of Florida.

Deer, on the other hand, have flourished. With fewer predators and limits on their hunting—as well as...

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