Adult cougars have no natural enemies, only man with his hunting dogs. Prey species include deer, elk, occasionally domestic livestock, and any smaller mammals which opportunity makes available. The preferred meat is deer. Cougars kill about a deer a week. Like wolves, cougars often kill old, weak or sick individuals, leaving the prey population in a healthier overall condition.
Cougars are solitary, territorial hunters.
The original distribution of the cougar was across lower Canada in the north to Patagonia, South America in the south. It was the most widely distributed land mammal in the Western Hemisphere. It was found in a variety of habitats, including tidal marshes, deserts, mountainous terrain and deciduous, coniferous and tropical forests. With the exception of Florida, the cougar has been extirpated from east of the Mississippi River since 1900. In the west, it is still quite common in wilderness areas of the Rocky Mountain states and British Columbia.