Dynamic risk from Mexican wolves and mountain lions influences elk foraging behavior

Foraging time is a major component of ungulate activity budgets but can be limited by anti‐predator behaviors (e.g., vigilance). Multitasking can reduce the nutritional costs of vigilance under heightened predation risk, but this may depend on the response of prey to risk from multiple predators across a complex spatiotemporal landscape. Mexican gray wolves (Canis lupus baileyi) and mountain lions (Puma concolor) are primary predators for elk (Cervus canadensis) in the Mexican wolf experimental population area in east‐central Arizona and west‐central New Mexico.