I worked with mountain lions in California.

A major problem is humans in rural areas killing them on site and burying their remnants to hide it. The killing often was not invoked by livestock death either.

We found many mountain lions in livestock areas. We would then check to see if there were any losses if livestock with land owners without them knowing a lion was present. A large majority did not have unaccounted animals. Yet, a very large majority would become quite upset when they found out there was a mountain lion present even though they were not seeing losses.

It seems it's often immediately presumed by many ranchers that mountain lions are the biggest adversity they face even though our data didn't show that. It seems there is a bias mindset involved that leads to excessive death in rural areas sadly.