More on our puma fearing people paper from Peter Fimrite at the SF Chronicle and Paul Rogers at the San Jose Mercury news.
“People allude to this idea all the time — that mountain lions are more afraid of us than we are of them. But science has never shown that before,” said Chris Wilmers, an associate professor of environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz who worked on the study. “When people go out hiking, some have a fear that mountain lions are going to attack them. But it turns out that mountain lions are quite afraid of people.”
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The recordings that were played in the lion experiment were snippets of shows of TV and talk radio personalities, including liberal Rachel Maddow and conservative Rush Limbaugh.
“We used them because they were high-quality recordings,” Smith said. “But the pumas showed no partisanship. They all ran away from everyone.”
Our work was also featured in National Geographic, the New Scientist, Popular Science, and Newsweek.