Hunting can be a threat if harvest levels, especially that of females, are high. In some local areas of the province where there are high densities of hunters, the threat level may be higher. Overall in the province, hunting is likely not a major threat due to the large and contiguous distribution of cougars, their ability to disperse long distances, and the mostly low densities of hunters across their range. Non-hunter mortality is related mostly to human conflicts and hence is highest near populated areas and thus may threaten the persistence of populations adjacent to human settlements. Smaller numbers of cougars are killed illegally (about 3 per year) and in road and rail accidents (about 8 per year), although many of these events are likely not recorded (Mowat et al. 2023)

An underlying threat is the distribution and abundance of prey, which is greatly influenced by human use of the landscape where habitats are destroyed or converted to land unavailable to prey species such as deer or elk. Warming trends have allowed both deer species and elk to expand their range north over the past 40 years, and cougar populations have expanded following these species. Thus, some aspects of climate change may, at least temporarily benefit this species.