Mountain Lion Hit By Car, Killed On Malibu Canyon Road

MALIBU, CA – A female mountain lion known as P-23 was hit and killed by a car on Malibu Canyon Road earlier this week; National Park Service biologists recovered her remains. Biologists for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (SMMNRA) have been tracking P-23 since she was just a few weeks old, documenting her dispersal from her mom, establishment of a home range as an adult, and her birth to three litters of kittens, according to Jeff Sikich, biologist for the SMMNRA.

“Unfortunately, her life came to an end prematurely due to the challenge of navigating the complex road network in this area,” Sikich said.

P-23 was 5 1/2 years old and her most recent offspring are now approximately one-year-old. Biologists tagged one of the kittens, P-54, at a few weeks of age, but only learned of the additional kitten after trail cameras picked him or her traveling with mom and sister, the SMMNRA press release said.

Given that the two juvenile cats have already reached the one-year mark, biologists believe they will be able to fend for themselves. Mountain lions typically leave their mom between one and one-and-a-half years old; P-23 separated from her mother when she was one-year-old.

P-23, like several other mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains, is a product of first order inbreeding, the press release said. Her mother, P-19, mated with P-12, who is both her father and grandfather. P-23 later mated with P-12, her father, in another example of this close inbreeding.

“This animal’s tragic death is a reminder that wildlife corridors and open space are critical to the survival of these magnificent cats,” said J.P. Rose, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “California needs to stop funneling money into more highway projects when our existing road networks don’t include crossings to protect mountain lions and other key members of our ecosystems.”

A video of one of P-23's survivor kittens, named P-53, is shown below.

In 2013, P-23 attracted major news coverage when she was photographed on top of a deer on Mulholland Highway, and she's the 18th known case of a mountain lion killed on a freeway or road in the study region since 2002. Southern California’s extensive road network is both a source of mortality, as in this case, and a major barrier to movement in the case of large and busy freeways, which have particularly hemmed in the mountain lion population in the Santa Monica Mountains, the press release said.

The National Park Service has been studying mountain lions in and around the Santa Monica Mountains since 2002 to determine how they survive in an increasingly fragmented and urbanized environment. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which is responsible for overseeing the management and conservation of mountain lions in the state, will conduct a necropsy, according to the press release.

Photo and video provided by the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area