By JENNIKA INGRAM | Reporter
Around 4 a.m. on Saturday, September 7, a 4-year-old mountain lion known as P-61 was hit and killed on the 405 freeway. His GPS indicates P-61 was found at Bel Crest Road and the Sepulveda Boulevard underpass.
On July 19, P-61 was the only GPS-collared mountain lion to have ever successfully crossed the 10-lane freeway, according to a 17-year National Park Service study on mountain lions in the area. The study is to determine how they can survive in “an increasingly fragmented and urbanized environment.”
“We’re not sure why P-61 decided to try and cross the 405 freeway again,” NPS biologist Jeff Sikich said in a statement. “Based on his GPS points, he had been staying close to the eastern edge of the 405 more recently.
“Over the last few years, we and others have gotten remote camera photos of an uncollared male mountain lion that apparently lives in that area. A scuffle between the two could have caused P-61 to move back west.”
Initially, California Highway Patrol moved P-61 out of traffic. Then, the city of Los Angeles Animal Control officers retrieved the animal and contacted the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and Santa Monica Mountain National Recreation researchers. P-61 will undergo a necropsy at the California Animal Health & Food Safety Laboratory in San Bernardino.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife oversee the management and conservation of mountain lions in the state.
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