Cheetahs and Pumas Strike a Balance to Hunt

Being a carnivore -- stalking, chasing and killing your prey -- is hard work. But two new studies show that cheetahs and pumas have their hunts down to a science. The studies suggest that mid-size predators, or mesopredators, may not be as energetically constrained by resources and competition as researchers had imagined. However, they also imply that human activity could offset the delicate balance these mesopredators have struck over thousands of years of evolution.