In late 2022, disaster struck the City of Los Angeles. It wasn’t pandemic-related or a disastrous earthquake, or even a traffic jam on the 405. Instead, the city mourned the death of one of its most popular celebrities. A hometown hero, P-22 was far from the average well-groomed starlet. Elusive yet beautiful, perhaps it was his feline-like features or his intimidating stature. He resided in the Hollywood Hills and could be occasionally spotted roaming Griffith Park, a neighborhood he’d moved to from his previous home in the Santa Monica Mountains.

However, instead of racking up credits on the silver screen, P-22 was known for gracing the doorbell cameras and backyard security footage of Angelenos, occasionally picking off a small dog or two. In 2012, a mountain lion was caught on a motion-sensing camera in Griffith Park. Nicknamed P-22, experts concluded that the wayward cat had journeyed from the Santa Monica Mountains, crossing through the 405 and 101 freeways in the process. To make an unlikely journey even more unfathomable, the 101 freeway forms a nearly impassable barrier for the puma population of the Santa Monica Mountains, cutting off their already-dwindling gene pool and leading to inbreeding and genetic anomalies.
Despite the odds, P-22 lived out his days in the park, presumably isolated from the rest of the region’s mountain lion population. The celebrity cat was ultimately euthanized after he was found suffering from severe injuries from a probable vehicle collision. The face of California mountain lion conservation and a poster child for the construction of the world’s biggest wildlife bridge, the death of the beloved city-dwelling mountain lion offers an opportunity to consider the rift in the relationship between urbanization and natural ecosystems. As metropolitan areas continue to swell in size and density, so do the number of animals and natural ecosystems that unintentionally become our neighbors. Yet we continue to expand, typically without a second thought, and most often at the expense of native flora and fauna.