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P-18 spotted earlier on webcam. National Park Service photo.
A 15-month-old male lion known as P-18 left his mother's home range in Malibu Creek State Park earlier this summer. The National Park Service had been tracking him via GPS collar moving east through the Santa Monica Mountains. The NPS announced today that P-18 was killed earlier this week trying to cross the Interstate 405 freeway south of the Getty Center southbound freeway off-ramp. Since the local NPS began to study mountain lion movement in 2002, only one lion has been documented safely crossing a freeway surrounding the Santa Monica range, according to outdoors writer Pete Thomas — that was P-12, sire of P-18.
* Update:Officials believe P-18 was struck about 4 a.m. on Tuesday; the driver did not report the collision. “He was found at 7:30 am when traffic started backing up and the CHP went in and found a dead lion with a GPS collar,” said Christie Brigham, chief of planning, science and resource management for the Santa Monica National Recreation Area. The lion could have gotten past the freeway at the nearby Sepulveda Boulevard undercossing. ZevWeb
Noted: Burbank police warned this week that a mountain lion has been seen around homes near Oakmont Country Club.