A California mountain lion tracked by biologists came to a violent end last week on the same road where her mother was killed four years ago.
A vehicle hit and killed the cougar with a radio collar, known as P-54, on Las Virgenes Road in the Santa Monica Mountains on Friday, the National Park Service said on social media.
The announcement noted that P-54 was the 29th mountain lion since 2002 to be killed by a vehicle in the scientists’ study area, which includes the Santa Monica Mountains, Simi Hills, Santa Susana Mountains, Verdugo Mountains and Griffith Park. . Ten of the poemas killed had radio collars.
But P-54’s death was particularly poignant in light of the death of her mother, P-23, in 2018. P-23 was “not too far” in January of that year from where P-54 died by a vehicle hit and killed. After her death, animal advocates said the incident illustrated the need for more wildlife crossings over California’s busy highways.
National Park Service via Associated Press
“These big cats do not fit into the network of roads, highways and vast areas we have built with little regard for their impact on lions or wildlife connectivity,” Center for Biological Diversity attorney JP Rose told HuffPost at the time.
P-54 and her brother and sister were about a year old when their mother was killed, at the beginning of the period in which mountain lion kittens usually leave their mothers and leave on their own.
National Park Service via Associated Press
Although scientists were initially unsure how the kittens would fare, P-54 grew up and eventually became a mother herself. However, it is believed that her first litter of three did not survive past the early kitten years, and the two cubs in her second litter also experienced untimely deaths. One of them, known as P-98, was killed by game wardens after attacking a child in the yard of a Los Angeles County home.
And two months ago, her other puppy, P-97, was killed in the same way as his mother and grandmother, though not on the same road, according to the National Park Service. A vehicle fatally hit him on a highway near Los Angeles’ Getty Center. He was 18 months old.
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