- Animals
” There’s no feline like him,” states Nat Geo professional photographer Steve Winter, whose picture of P-22 assisted make the cougar a celeb. After current irregular habits, the aging feline has actually been caught for more assessment.
Published December 14, 2022
6 minutes read
When Steve Winter initially drifted the concept of photographing a mountain lion strolling under the Hollywood indication, the biologist he was dealing with “took a look at me like I was insane,” Winter remembers with a laugh.
That remained in2012 8 months after that discussion, the professional photographer got a text from Jeff Sikich, a biologist with the National Park Service, stating just: “CALL ME NOW.” Sikich had actually suddenly caught a picture of a mountain lion on an electronic camera trap right throughout from the Hollywood check in Griffith Park, an 6.5-square-mile city maintain in Los Angeles.
It was P-22, a young male who had actually astonishingly handled to cross 2 significant highways from his birth place in the Santa Monica Mountains to the tourist-filled Hollywood Hills. His name, P-22, shows he was the 22 nd puma to get a tracking collar as part of the National Park Service’s research study.
Winter invested the next 15 months setting up electronic camera traps in Griffith Park till he captured the now-famous photo of P-22, which appeared in the December 2013 problem of National Geographic publication. ( Read more about how Winter recorded the unbelievable image.)
In addition to drawing in almost 20,000 fans on his Facebook page, which is preserved by the not-for-profit Save LA Cougars, P-22 has actually made more headings throughout the years. He likely eliminated a zoo koala during the night in 2016, and in 2014 he endured a severe bout of mange, an illness that’s usually deadly to the huge felines– even when researchers step in to treat it.
” I do not understand of any private feline throughout the world that has actually made such a fantastic effect on individuals like P-22,” states Winter, who is likewise a National Geographic Explorer.
The feline has actually likewise accentuated the requirement for wildlife passages to link animal populations through extremely urbanized southern California. Such sprawl isolates pockets of mountain lions, which can result in inbreeding. In 2021, the state of California started constructing the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, an overpass that will permit animals to cross 10 lanes of hectic Highway 101 by 2024.
But for P-22, it’s completion of an age. At 12 years of ages, the predator is thought about senior, which might describe why he’s been seen just recently in thick human locations and assaulting animals rather of mule deer, his native food.
On December 12, Sikich and other park service biologists caught the radio-collared animal to assess his health. On December 14, wildlife authorities reported that P-22 was significantly underweight, with an eye injury most likely brought on by an automobile strike. The animal is living at a concealed veterinary center up until a total health analysis is carried out in the next couple of weeks. Authorities stated it’s not likely based on his existing condition that P-22 would return to the wild, and might live out his days at a wildlife sanctuary.
We talked with Winter about his amazing photo, and the tradition that P-22 leaves for Angelenos and beyond.
What did you believe when you heard wildlife biologists captured P-22 to assess his health?
It plucks the heartstrings. He altered my life. When I talked with Jeff Sikich last April, he was stating P-22 is investing excessive time in metropolitan locations. When P-22 took that do