Habitat destruction and breaking up habitat into excessively small, unconnected spaces is a big issue: The specie's habitats have been choked off by California

Habitat destruction and breaking up habitat into excessively small, unconnected spaces is a big issue: The specie's habitats have been choked off by California's freeways. Though as many as 6,000 mountain lions live in California, researchers believe the population in the Santa Monica Mountains... could die out in 50 years... The great slashes of asphalt also make journeys to new homes potentially deadly. In September, a pregnant mountain lion was struck and killed when she tried to cross a Malibu highway, which bisects a key swathe of habitat. She and her four unborn cubs all had traces of rat poison in their systems.