Cougars, Mountain Lions, Panthers, Puma - they're all the same thing, just different names. They, like most apex predators, are maligned and hunted.

I was just reading today about a Mountain Lion called P-22, who lived in Griffith Park in southern California. He wandered through the park and on the streets of Hollywood for 10 years. He wore a tracking collar, and provided so much data about the activities of male Mountain Lions - most of it involved minding his own business.

See some P-22 footage here: https://www.facebook.com/reel/901397757971206

He was humanely euthanized in 2022, after being hit by a car. If that had been the only problem, he'd probably still be alive, but he, like our domestic kitties, had a number of problems. He had kidney disease; he had rat poison in his system (from eating rodents who had ingested the poison); he had serious arthritis. Instead of weighing the usual 125 lbs, he was only 90 lbs when he was captured. He was having trouble hunting.

And yet thi...