Puma (Puma concolor) in the Neighborhood? Records Near Human Settlements and Insights into Human-Carnivore Coexistence in Central Chile

Abstract

The wildland–urban interface lies at the confluence of human-dominated and wild landscapes—creating a number of management and conservation challenges. Wildlife sightings near human settlements have appeared to increase in the last years. This article reports 51 records of presences, sightings, and livestock attacks of Puma concolor, a large-sized felid, collected from 2012 to 2020 across the O’Higgins region in central Chile. Puma records were concentrated in the east of the region in the Andes Range and foothills (90%). The number of puma records is higher in the last four to six years than in previously studied years. Of the 51 records, 23.5% are between 0 and 999 m from the nearest human settlement (classified as very close), 25.5% are between 1000 and 4999 m (moderately close), and 51% are over 5000 m (distant). Most of the sightings are recorded in the summer (35%) and spring (29%). We identify an area of approximately 9000 km2 of suitable habitat as the most probable corridor effectively connecting pumas moving between eastern and western areas, encompassing the Angostura de Paine mountain range. Our results contribute to the understanding of the presence and movements of P. concolor near urban areas and human settlements, confirming their persistence in and adaptation to human-dominated landscapes. We also provide insights into human–carnivore coexistence in the current global context in the densely populated central Chile.

Native Carnivore Diversity and Relative Abundance in Landscapes of the Coast Range in Central Chile: Insights for Conservation Decision-Making

“…For L. colocola, it may be due to its low abundance and scarce populations endemic to central Chile; its conservation status has been suggested to be upgraded to categories of higher threat levels according to the latest taxonomic assessments [52,[79][80][81]. P. concolor is a species whose presence has been previously recorded in these landscapes of the Coast Range of central Chile [39]. However, the lack of detection in this study is coincidental with its cryptic movements and low detection rates, even with a high sampling effort.…”

“…In recent years, some authors have even proposed the existence of hybridization within the genus Lycalopex [36][37][38]. With a distribution all along the Chilean territory and traditionally linked to the Andes Range, Puma concolor has scarce but healthy populations in the Coast Range of the O'Higgins region [39] (mean home range of 550 km 2 [40]). L. guigna is distributed latitudinally in Chile between the Coquimbo (29 • 02 ) and Aysén (49 • 16 ) regions, with two subspecies: L. g. tigrillo (northern subspecies, assessed in this study) and L. g. guigna (southern subspecies) [41][42][43] (mean home range of 2.7 km 2 [44]).…”

“I Did, I Did Taw a Puddy Tat!” Pumas in Urban Ecosystems of Latin America: A Review of the Mediatic Information

“…During this period, home ranges of pumas are at its minimum, food resources are crumpled, and the mating season is at the maximum (Johansson et al, 2018). So, because of the winter conditions in the Southern Hemisphere (e.g., food scarcity) pumas could be forced to cross anthropic landscapes searching for higher prey availability or mating partners (Ramírez-Álvarez et al, 2021). Future lines of research of spatial data (i.e., telemetry data) of puma's populations in this Hemisphere could contribute to comprehend better this potential relationship between the temporal patterns of the events and puma's biology.…”

El Giro Multiespecies: Representación Geohistórica Del Puma Desde Una Perspectiva Interdisciplinaria (Siglos Xvi-Xxi)

“…En este sentido existen estudios en todos los continentes, así como múltiples investigaciones para América Latina, particularmente para Brasil, México y Costa Rica (Hofstatter y Oliveira, 2020;Kelly, 2019;Ubiali et al, 2018;Sotelo-Gallardo et al, 2018;Castillo-Chinchilla et al, 2018). También se han realizado trabajos recientes en Perú (Mazzolli, 2019) y Chile (Bonacic, 2007;Iriarte et al, 2016;Ramírez-Álvarez et al, 2021). Uno de los objetivos más importantes de estos últimos ha sido caracterizar a las poblaciones de felinos y buscar elementos que permitan comprender y superar la relación de conflicto en cuestión.…”