Puma responses to unreliable human cues suggest an ecological trap in a fragmented landscape

Animals’ fear of people is widespread across taxa and can mitigate the risk of human-induced mortality, facilitating coexistence in human-dominated landscapes. However, humans can be unpredictable predators and anthropogenic cues that animals perceive may not be reliable indicators of the risk of being killed. In these cases, animal fear responses may be ineffective and may even exacerbate the risk of anthropogenic mortality. Here, we explore these questions using a 10-year dataset of movement and mortality events for the puma (Puma concolor) population in the fragmented Santa Cruz Mountains of California, for whom the leading cause of death was retaliatory killings by people following livestock loss. We modeled retaliatory killing risk and puma habitat selection relative to residential housing density to evaluate whether puma avoidance of human cues reflected their risk of being killed. We documented a mismatch between human cues, fear responses, and actual risk. Rather than scaling di...