California is turning mountain lions into roadkill faster than they can reproduce

P-81, a young male mountain lion, was discovered in the Santa Monica Mountains in March 2020. “But state highways have turned out to be a dead end for mountain lions.” To produce the map, Shilling said, mountain lion strike data were collected from CHP, Caltrans, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, UC scientists and others and merged into a geographic information system for visualization. “In any case, every time one dies on the road we’re repeating the tragedy of P-22.” The legendary mountain lion known as P-22 roamed the hills in and around Griffith Park for more than a decade until he was hit by a vehicle and found injured in a Los Feliz backyard. “This is a relatively new form of mortality,” he wrote, “and if one were to estimate the entire mileage of such roads in the state, the mortality must mount into the hundreds and perhaps thousands every 24-hours.” Flash forward 103 years, and crashes with wildlife are prompting calls for a variety of projects designed to reduce fatal collisions while helping animals such as bears, elk, deer, bighorn sheep and mountain lions cross dangerous highways to find food and mates. Winston Vickers, a veterinarian at the UC Davis Wildlife Health Center, said, “a big worry has always been that the impact of cars combined with other sources of mortality can be a threat to mountain lion survival, especially if a population is declining genetically.” Shilling’s survey comes at a time of ongoing efforts by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to identify and prioritize wildlife movement barriers across the state and develop plans for wildlife crossings.