Wildlife officials are looking into a famous mountain lion known as the "Hollywood Cat" after it showed signs of distress and killed a leashed dog in a residential neighborhood.
P-22, as ecologists have dubbed him, is well-known in Los Angeles. He has been living in Griffith Park, which is home to the famous Griffith Observatory and Hollywood Sign, at least since he arrived there from the Santa Monica Mountains. According to the National Park Service, crossing two major LA freeways is "a feat other lions have died trying to do." And over the years, he's gained even more notoriety, with some of his greatest hits including: overcoming a public battle with rat poison, burrowing beneath a home in a saga that captivated TV audiences, posing for a now-famous photoshoot by the Hollywood Sign, and allegedly killing a koala at the LA Zoo.
P-22 has been hailed as an "ambassador for urban wildlife" and the "Brad Pitt of mountain lions." However, he's also ascending: He is thought to be 12 years old by the NPS, making him the oldest Southern California cougar being studied and far exceeding the species' average lifespan.
He has been dubbed "a remarkably old cat in the wild" by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), and there have been sightings and recordings of him getting close to human homes, raising concerns that he may be showing signs of distress. P-22 is also to blame for two recent attacks on leashed chihuahuas, one of which resulted in the death of one dog in the Hollywood Hills in November and another injuring another dog earlier this month.
The CDFW stated, "This is an unprecedented circumstance in which a mountain lion has continued to exist in such an urban setting." However, as P-22 has aged, the difficulties of living on an island with no habitat appear to be getting worse, and researchers have noticed a recent shift in his behavior. This demonstrates the consequences for mountain lions and other wildlife of a lack of habitat connectivity.
On Thursday, the state and federal agencies made the announcement that they would work together to catch P-22 and bring him in for a health checkup. By Monday, they had effectively caught him in an occupant's lawn
P-22 is stable, but his future is uncertain
P-22 may have been struck by a vehicle, according to an anonymous report received by authorities on Sunday night. According to a joint release, the agencies found him the following day in a neighborhood south of his base and used the GPS signal from his collar to locate him.
According to what she told the Washington Post, resident Sarah Picchi was working from home when a wildlife officer rang her doorbell on Monday morning to inform her that "there's a lion in your backyard."
She and her husband were looking out the window as a group of officers cautiously approached the animal in the bushes, subdued him with a tranquilizer gun, checked his temperature and teeth, carried him in a tarp into a container, and then drove away, all within about forty minutes.
Picchi revealed to the New York Times that her neighbors had been keeping an eye on the sightings and were concerned about P-22, whom she referred to as a "kind of Angeles himself" in her own words.
She said, referring to residents of the city, "They feel a lot of empathy for him because he's kind of on his own." Although P-22 is the only mountain lion that is known to have crossed the freeways, it is one of many that scientists from the National Park Service are studying in the Santa Monica Mountains and the surrounding area. That number is growing, as officials announced last week that one of the mountain lions they are tracking gave birth to four healthy kittens in July
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