He was a symbol, the face of a campaign, a subject of songs and an inspiration for an entire city. But P-22 – the most famous mountain lion in Los Angeles, and quite possibly the world – was also just a cat, and the cat had gotten very old.
In the end, he was undone by the very city that loved him. Marooned in a park surrounded by urban neighborhoods and freeways, without access to his natural range or the prospect of a mate, he grew infirm and began acting erratically. On Saturday, after bringing him in for a health check, wildlife officials took the difficult step of euthanizing him.
P-22’s death prompted an outpouring of grief and respect for the wild influencer who became an international celebrity. Mourners gathered in Griffith Park – the park in the Hollywood Hills he called home for 10 years – and social media flooded with tributes. The California governor weighed in, saying his “survival on an island of wilderness” had “captivated the world”.
Simply knowing that a big cat was out there – stalking the night under the Hollywood sign – comforted people who had grown to love him. It’s unusual for a city to root for an apex predator in its midst, but his life reflected the best of Los Angeles: inclusivity, joy and living in harmony with the natural world.
“He changed us,” wrote Beth Pratt, regional California director for the National Wildlife Foundation who spent the last decade working and advocating for P-22, in a remembrance.
“He made us more human, made us connect more to that wild place in ourselves. We are part of nature and he reminded us of that. Even in the city that gave us Carmeggedon, where we thought wildness had been banished a long time ago, P-22 reminded us it’s still here.”
A remarkable journey from wilderness to city
P-22’s journey to Griffith Park began many miles away in the Santa Monica mountains outside the city of Los Angeles. P-22 was born around 2010, and his name derived from a study of mountain lions in the area. P stands for puma, while the number corresponds to the individual cat being tracked by National Park Service biologists.
Sometime around 2012, P-22 left the Santa Monica mountains and set off on a remarkable 50-mile journey that took him across two major Los Angeles freeways, evading traffic and human detection. He eventually found the wilderness of Griffith Park to set up his range – at 8 sq miles, it was probably the smallest roaming territory of any known mountain lion (typically a male cat’s territory is 150 sq miles).
P-22 rocketed to fame after being caught on film in Griffith Park a decade ago. He was soon fitted with a collar to track his movements, and the city started to fall in love. Pratt points out that in any other part of the country, P-22 probably would have been removed or killed. In Los Angeles, he became famous. She tattooed his face on her arm, and dubbed him “the Brad Pitt of mountain lions” – handsome, enigmatic and unlucky in love (he never found a mate because he was cut off from his kind in the park).
The big cat lived a mostly quiet life – eating deer, roaming around at night, in the presence of millions of humans but rarely seen. When he did pop up over the years – for example, when he ate an elderly koala at the Los Angeles Zoo or when he wandered past houses in the residential neighborhoods such as Los Feliz and Silverlake – he was celebrated.
It was only this year that things began to slip. In May there was an inkling of trouble, Pratt said, when public photos of him showed that his tail looked thin – potentially with mange. But he was still hunting deer and behaving normally otherwise, so there was no reason to bring him in for assessment.
Then in November, P-22 killed a chihuahua and attacked several other dogs, in close proximity to humans. For 10 years, he had used all of Griffith Park as his habitat, only paying brief visits to urban areas. Suddenly, he was sleeping in backyards and looking for small animals like raccoons or pets to eat. “That was kind of the first step in a radical rapid change in behavior,” says Pratt. “He had gotten desperate and now we know why.”
The scans and tests conducted by veterinarians confirmed some serious news: P-22 had been hit by a car – injuring his right eye, and herniating his organs in his chest cavity. His kidneys were in stage two failure. His weight was only 90lb, much lower than the 120lb he should have weighed. A skin parasite, probably picked up from domestic cats, was causing him severe distress and pain.
Pratt adds that state wildlife officials were trying to find a cat sanctuary for P-22, until they got the full analysis of his declining health. Then it was clear: he was suffering, and euthanasia was the humane option.
Leaving behind a legacy
P-22’s life became a symbol of the need for wildlife crossings to reconnect habitats fragmented by human development. And changes inspired by him are already under way.
He was the face of raising funds for one of the world’s largest wildlife crossings, which broke ground earlier this year, and will connect two parts of the Santa Monica mountain range. The elaborate crossing will allow P-22’s kin – along with animals from lizards to birds – to increase their range and allow for more genetic diversity. Conservationists say such crossings are essential to helping species maintain habitat and reduce their chance of being killed on roads.
While Pratt had studied P-22 for years, she met him for the first time on the day he died. In his final moments, the two species looked into each other’s eyes for a long time. Pratt told P-22 that she loved him, the world loved him, and she would never stop working to make sure the circumstances of his life – the lack of habitat connectivity – never happened to another cat.
“I don’t think ever in history has a wild mountain lion had a blond woman sitting next to him bawling her eyes out,” she says. “I do think we do communicate with animals, and I believe that helped him.”
Could there ever be another P-22, a cat who crossed freeways to live in an urban park? Pratt says it’s unlikely. “These animals are individuals, with personalities and emotions,” she says. It takes a rare personality of a cat to stroll down Sunset Boulevard.” Pratt says a larger celebration of his life will be held in LA in 2023.
“He has changed people to see wildlife differently, which is amazing,” Pratt says. “Because when the next wild animal needs our help, people are going to think of P-22.”
