What type of habitat do mountain lions prefer?
Mountain lions live in much of western North America, in mountains, foothills, and valleys. They live where they can find cover (for stalking) and large prey–deer or elk. Where there are suitable prey and cover, there are probably mountain lions. Mountain lions avoid open grasslands and row-crop agricultural areas. They seek areas with woody vegetation and few people. Researchers have found home ranges in California to be about 25 to 290 square miles for adult mountain lions, depending on terrain and other factors. Males typically have larger ranges than females. Adult male ranges overlap little, but adult female home ranges typically overlap. Areas too small to accommodate these home ranges cannot support cougar populations unless the areas are connected to one another by suitable corridors of vegetation to provide a large enough accessible area in the aggregate. Habitat fragmentation, therefore, is as great a threat (or a greater one) to cougar survival than is loss of habitat per s
