Richard Collins: Has Covid forced animals into a Stockholm Syndrome with their human neighbours

It seesm animals failed to take advantage of the lack of humans during lockdown

Mountain lions moving back into the city of Boulder, Colorado during the Coronavirus lockdown.

In 1973, four people were taken hostage during a Swedish bank raid. The captives developed a bond with the raiders and, after release, refused to testify against them. A new term had entered the lexicon; ‘Stockholm syndrome’. Now, scientists in California have discovered what seems like a feline version of this emotional condition among big cats.

Human activity is responsible for over half of mountain lion deaths in the Santa Anna Mountains in the US. Lions are poisoned and shot, legally and illegally, but motorways present the greatest threat; animals take their lives in their paws crossing them. The mountain lion survival rate is just 56% year on year. Isolated from each other by ten-lane highways, and facing relentless human encroachment, cats are becoming inbred, females are failing to breed and cubs have heart defects.