The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing: a lonely bachelor’s legacy - Vol 3 Sneak Peek
The incredible journey of the world's most famous cougar and the solution offering hope to California’s lonely mountain lions.
Article by: Eveline White
Artwork by: Eva Kunzova
Stalking, her four paws padding silently over the sandy ground, a mountain lion slinks through the scrub. Scanning the mountains around her, she searches for the deer that will feed her hungry cubs. Directly below her, cars hurtle along the highway towards the bustling city of Los Angeles, California.
This is the vision which a new wildlife crossing over the US 101 Freeway, northwest of Los Angeles, hopes to create.
The second largest city in the United States, Los Angeles is known for its exclusive palm-lined neighbourhoods, Hollywood studios and glamorous celebrities. At first glance, it may not seem like there’s much wildlife here at all. But up in the mountains that surround the city, another story is unfolding.
Living in the hills surrounding the city are California’s mountain lions. A powerful predator, these cats have lived in the Santa Monica mountains since the last ice age, surviving the extinction of iconic megafauna, such as the sabretooth cat.
With two of California’s other top predators, the grey wolf and the grizzly bear, now extinct from the area (though the grey wolf is now returning to northern California), the mountain lion - sometimes referred to as a ‘cougar’ or ‘puma’ – has long served as a lasting reminder of the fierce wilderness which once existed before the glitz and glamour of Hollywood.
This article follows the story of one mountain lion in particular, known as P-22.
Born in the Santa Monica mountains in around 2010, P-22 made an incredible journey, which no other mountain lion has since succeeded in making. Likely forced out of his original home by his aggressive father and his struggle to find a mate - a common story for male mountain lions - P-22 travelled east, towards Los Angeles.
Named so because he was the 22nd puma to be tagged as part of a wider study, P-22 made his debut on camera in 2012, after trail-cam footage revealed he was living in Griffith Park, just north of Hollywood.
With the park cut off from the mountains by two major highways, the 101 and 405, P-22 had succeeded in crossing two roads which had killed many other mountain lions who had dared attempt the journey.
Upon being discovered living in the park, P-22’s rise to fame began.
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