Video: Inside the Hard Lives of Los Angeles Mountain Lions

[flamingdem]

http://la.curbed.com/2016/3/3/11158588/mountain-lions-los-angeles-video

It's a tough life for a mountain lion trying to make it in the big city. As a recent video from KCET shows, these impressive predators face immense obstacles to survival as they try to navigate a hostile urban environment populated with some very territorial family members.

The video tracks the exploits of P-22 and P-32 (the "P" stands for puma), two local mountain lions born in the Santa Monica Mountains. (P-22 is the famous Griffith Park Mountain Lion.) Because mountain lions are very protective of their space, both animals had to venture far from home in search of a new habitat, and along the way, they have braved dangerous freeway crossings, ingested rat poison, and, like so many Angelenos, been forced to pose with the Hollywood sign.

It's fascinating to get such an in-depth look at the lives of some of Los Angeles's most rarely seen creatures, but make sure to have a box of tissues handy when viewing. Let's just say there's a good reason Caltrans is trying to build an animal crossing over the 101 (apparently at great cost).

[flamingdem]

1. How P-22 Became Hollywood's Most Famous Mountain Lion

http://gizmodo.com/how-p-22-became-hollywoods-most-famous-mountain-lion-1697806119

A mountain lion named P-22 is making headlines today for being discovered inside—and eventually escaping from—a Los Angeles basement. In this excerpt from his new book about the urban wilderness, Tristan Donovan gives us the origin story of P-22.

The discovery of P-22, the mountain lion that lives in Griffith Park, was pure fluke. The park is part of the Santa Monica Mountains, but thanks to the Los Angeles sprawl it is cut off from the rest of the range by the Hollywood Freeway and urban development.

Griffith Park’s unusual status as an island of natural habitat in an ocean of development had long piqued the interest of biologists.

Among them Miguel Ordeñana of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. He was keen to find out if animals were traveling in and out of the park when the only safe routes to and fro were a few bridges and underpasses crossing the busy Hollywood Freeway.

To shed some light on this, Miguel put motion-detecting cameras around the park and the routes over US 101 to get photos of passing animals. He wasn’t looking for mountain lions.

“I was looking through the photos one afternoon, hoping to see a bobcat as that was the most rare, coolest thing at the time,” says Miguel. “I went through the photos and was really excited to see a bobcat in there.

More at link..

[SunSeeker]

2. What a lonely, stressful life P-22 must lead.