What would happen to deer in a recreation area if the mountain lion is removed?

Answer 1

If mountain lions are removed from a natural park type of setting, and we are assuming that the lions are the sole predator of the deer in the area, then what you would see is an increase in the deer population. As long as there are enough resources in the park setting (food, water, space, mates, etc.,) then the population will continue to rise until they begin to run out of resources. The deer will probably rather quickly overpopulate the area, and will strip the park of the resources that they need to survive, so the population will crash. Most likely the park service that manages the area will allow some hunting of the deer in order to control the population. This is actually a very common practice since the natural predators of deer are not too common in most parts of the US at least, and so hunting of the deer is allowed to keep them from overpopulating and starving to death.