Radio-collar work by the U.S. National Park Service in the Santa Monica Mountains and surrounding Los Angeles basin has followed bobcats for more than two decades. The animals use remnant habitat corridors, drainage culverts and underpasses, and individuals have been recorded crossing beneath multi-lane freeways rather than over open ground.
The striking finding was medical. A severe outbreak of notoedric mange killed a large share of the collared population in the early 2000s, and affected animals were found to carry high loads of anticoagulant rodenticide. Poisons applied for rats move up the food chain through prey, and the association between compound exposure and mange severity has since been reported repeatedly in urban carnivores.
The short-tail name causes a persistent misidentification: bobcats are regularly reported as mountain lions by the public. Size is the reliable cue, an adult bobcat is roughly twice the mass of a domestic cat, while a puma is many times larger and has a long, heavy, dark-tipped tail.