Humans can coexist with predators

Who doesn’t love to watch birds around a feeder as you drink your coffee on a snowy winter morning?  
After getting through the long dry winter of last year and the fires of summertime, I did.
I waited to put our birdfeeder out until I was sure the bears were away.  
The Las Conchas Fire destroyed habitat for the large predators in the county.
If you watch black bears and mountain lions closely, you can tell when they are in flux. After the fire, these animals were forced to find new ranges.
Survival isn’t easy. By the time the snow came though, I hadn’t seen a bear in a long time and the mountain lions did not seem to be hovering close to North Mesa like they did last spring when the extreme drought brought them searching for water.
It seemed alright to feed the birds. Sometimes our birdfeeder attracts raccoons but it was cold enough that there weren’t many around — just one female raccoon with a couple of older cubs I noticed a couple of times playing in our old withering jack-o-lanterns.  
A few days before Christmas though, my children found part of a young raccoon in the canyon behind our house.
It had obviously been killed by a mountain lion. A few days later I read  about the Camino Redondo incident involving a mountain lion attack on a dog.

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