India, Jan. 27 -- The wildfires in Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the United States, have been estimated to be the costliest such disaster in US history.

The fires have destroyed a large part of the metropolitan area of Los Angeles. And while conversations have whirled around the role of human-induced climate change and the human death toll, the toll on the wildlife of the mega polis has not yet been highlighted.

Los Angeles, or LA, is unique in that as a mega polis, it hosts a mega carnivore, the puma (Puma concolor). The cougar, known by a bevy of names including puma, mountain lion and panther, is one of the two great cats of the Americas, the other being the jaguar. Pumas are found across the length of the American continen...