Those of us who live near Griffith Park, the nation’s largest municipal park, have access to the natural world that other big city dwellers can only dream about: more than four thousand acres encompassing miles of hiking and bridle trails, acres of native plants and trees and abundant wildlife. At the Park’s western edge I live a life that is half urban, half wild. Within two miles of my home is a trail where I am often alone. Downtown Hollywood lies only two miles south, but all I hear is birdsong.
For the past decade, the mountain lion P22 embodied this juxtaposition. He entered Griffith Park after crossing both the 405 and 101 freeways, a journey that has killed cougars by the dozens. Somehow he made it, living undetected for a couple of years before he was captured on a park camera in 2012. In his most famous photo, he skulks magnificently above Lake Hollywood Park, the nighttime Hollywood Sign above him. When it was published, a star was born.*
Marooned in an eight square mile park, P22 was destined for permanent bachelorhood. Mountain lions require a 150 mile habitat, so importing a mate was out of the question—there wasn’t enough room for him. P22 was assumed to be lonely, but he was spared the fate of other male mountain lions: an early death by a rival male. With no competition, he also enjoyed abundant food—deer, and occasional raccoons, foxes and rodents. He embarked on unheard-of adventures, visiting Forest Lawn Cemetery and Griffith Park Zoo, killing a koala at the latter. In the wee hours he often ventured to Beachwood Canyon and Los Feliz, roaming residential neighborhoods as nonchalantly as rugged terrain.
As home cameras became common, P22’s wanderings became part of neighborhood life. At night while brushing my teeth, I often wondered what’s P22 up to? I imagined him stalking his prey in the park or resting unseen in the chaparral, but often he was close by. Just before Thanksgiving, a man strapping his surf board onto his car before dawn photographed P22 walking nonchalantly toward him. “The best celebrity encounter ever!”, he wrote enthusiastically on Twitter. And last spring a driver filmed P22 running along my block in Hollywoodland before making an abrupt turn through a neighbor’s yard.
In November P22’s decade In Griffith Park was celebrated at the annual P22 Appreciation Day. Soon after, his behavior changed. He killed a leashed chihuahua up the hill from my house and started hanging around car ports and garages at dusk. Apparently unable to hunt deer, he was reduced to smaller prey. When he attacked another chihuahua in Silver Lake—a neighborhood previously beyond his territory—biologists and wildlife officers decided to bring him in for an evaluation. On December 8th he was darted in a backyard in Los Feliz and transported to a wildlife veterinary hospital for tests.
P22 was afflicted with mange, malnutrition, arthritis, kidney failure. He had new injuries to his face and one eye from being hit by a car. Given his advanced age these maladies were insurmountable, and on Saturday he was euthanized.
P22’s story has inspired the construction of a wildlife crossing bridge in Calabasas, which will give safe access to animals crossing the 101 freeway. Many hope it will bear his name rather than that of its largest donor, Wallis Annenberg. In Griffith Park, there are plans for a more traditional memorial: a bronze statue. Like the famous Hachiko statue at Tokyo’s Shibuya Station, a likeness of P22 would be an instant landmark and meeting place.
But even without a memorial, P22 is already legendary. His story and image have appeared across the world—including on the cover of National Geographic. Biologists will be studying him for years to come, with likely benefits for California’s endangered cougar population.
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*P22 came to be known as The Brad Pitt of Mountain Lions because of his handsomeness, solitude and air of mystery. But I prefer to think of Brad Pitt as The P22 of Humans.