Where do mountain lions hunt in Los Angeles?

Los Angeles is the second largest metropolitan area in the US, but it's retained some of its natural wild side. In the mountains surrounding the metropolis, mountain lions — the last large carnivore in southern California — live, hunt, and try to repopulate. A team made up of scientists from UCLA and the National Park Service recently set out to see exactly how they're doing that hunting, given the increased encroachment of humans.

The researchers looked at pieces of land in the Santa Monica Mountains and Santa Susana Mountains, bounded on every side by freeways, farms, and urban or suburban communities.

They found that male mountain lions tended to choose wooded areas near water for their hunting grounds, and generally avoided human...