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Blog | The Lions Eye: P-12's Story

The Lion's Eye will present life in the Santa Monica Mountains from a mountain lion's point of view. The stories of several lions will be told and perhaps their lives will take on another facet.

Mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains each have their own separate territories and essentially leave each other completely alone.

In the relatively small area they are forced to live in, they all are in heavy competition with each other for living space and food. They come together only to mate and to fight and then move on.

Mothers usually stay with their young until they are old enough to kill Mule Deer (1 or 2 years). At that time, the off-spring become competition for the mother’s food and are driven off. Several have been killed trying to find new territories to live in afterwards. P-18 (Puma No. 18) was hit by a motor vehicle trying to cross the 405 at Getty Center in the early morning rush. P-15 was killed by a poacher near Point Mugu State Park. P-22 was found living in Griffith Park early this summer.

Until March of 2009 every lion in the local mountains was related to every other lion. Only a couple of dozen have lived here in the past 10 years since the NPS began its study. Due to deadly fights, death by collision with vehicles and death by other human interactions, including poaching, there have never been more than a dozen lions alive at any one time in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (SMMNRA).

Because they were all related, the danger of mutation due to in-breeding threatened their existence. In March of 2009, P-12 crossed the 101 freeway after navigating a transition corridor from the Simi Hills at Liberty Canyon near Calabasas. He brought new genetic material with him as well as the hope for an end to the potential extinction of our local lions due weakness brought on by mutation.

He immediately found and mated with P-13, a local female in the Peter Strauss Ranch area, producing three off-spring, P-17, 18 and 19. P-17 died within a few months with anti-coagulant rodenticide in her blood stream. P-18 lived to become a threat to his mother and began what the NPS calls the dispersal process, heading east in hopes of crossing the 405 at the Getty Center to find a place to live.He was struck and killed by a vehicle in the early morning rush hour. The driver did not even stop. P-19 is a female and is still alive at 2 years of age. P-12 in-bred with her recently, , P-23 and 24, a male and a female now three months old. P-12's territory is expanding.

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Just a short thought to get the word out quickly about anything in your neighborhood.
Share something with your neighbors. Write a new post... What's up? Make an announcement, speak your mind, or sell something
Jessica E. Davis (Editor) May 24, 2013 at 04:58 pm
Hi Kim, Can you edit your announcement about the garage sale to include the time and location?Read More Thanks!
Marshall Thompson May 25, 2013 at 12:12 pm
Amen! Love motorcycles, hate noisy, illegal modified exhaust systems.
No More Secrets Beach App
Max May 23, 2013 at 01:54 pm
@hellwood. What you say is true also. Based on your assessment, all sports and visitors to ourRead More parks should be prohibited. Why? After every sporting event, and, after most weekends, I see all forms of trash littered throughout the park, the baseball fields, the parking lots, etc. And, all this in the PRESENCE of trash containers. When I approached a parent that littering is not only illegal; and, that birds mistake pieces of plastic as food which, as a result, kill them as well as their babies; and, that peanut shells attract rodents; and, also that allowing their kids (and, the parents) to litter is NOT a way to instill good habits amongst the children, I was told, "That's why we pay taxes...so that the city workers can clean up this mess." Could it be that some of these parents also own beach homes?
hellwood May 23, 2013 at 11:25 am
@max what you say is all true however, I live at a beach access, and there was minimal trash beforeRead More it was opened to the public. after the gate was opened, the beach and highway were transformed into a dump. after a busy weekend there is crap scattered all over the place, and no way to clean it up. for every jerk homeowner here in malibu, there are at least a hundred visitors who need to be taught some manners. watching people under homes crapping while their dogs crap all up and down, setting up shop on people's decks and stairs with BBQ's and coolers, and using the residents showers and hoses is really getting old. there are no restrooms, no trash cans on the beach, and the county doesn't maintain most of these beaches which means the locals are left with the mess.
Ben Dover May 23, 2013 at 11:23 am
I hope the APP explains to the city people that the sand in front of many of the homes is private toRead More the mean high tide line. Many homeowners have had their property stolen from them due to extortion by the CCC, many have not. I hope the APP also lets these people know that removing creatures from our local tide pools is a no-no, as well as molesting marine mammals.
M Stanley May 21, 2013 at 06:53 pm
Still no official spokesperson for CA State Parks? Not one person that speaks on behalf of theRead More project?? A REAL person who is paid to present facts, who got the contract to do the outreach that was in the budget documentation? Reach Out whoever you are, earn that pay!!!
Sulah cat May 21, 2013 at 06:36 pm
OK. Jamie, here's the deal. The money spent to restore the lagoon came from a pot of bond moneyRead More (voter approved) that was intended to be used ONLY for the maintenance of wetlands here in the state. If that money had not been spent here in Malibu it would have been spent elsewhere in the state on some other wetland. Any other use is a moot point. If you felt you were attacked it was only because you did seem a little obtuse. You first made the hot rod reference. Personally, I'm more into flat sixes than flat heads. Peace and have a good one. Puuuuuuuuuuuuuur.
JamieDixon May 21, 2013 at 04:19 pm
Sulah cat, My posts have demonstrated my belief that the “Malibu Lagoon RestorationRead More Project” is a name that may have been created in order to mislead people into thinking it that the project would be a worthwhile public expense. The idea of restoring the Lagoon isn’t necessarily a bad idea. That being said, I believe the money spent to alter the Lagoon could have been spent in many other ways that would have served the public better. Why do you attack me personally? First, you say I’m not a car guy and then you accuse me being into flat head Fords? Fords, really? Sincerely yours,
Max May 21, 2013 at 10:22 am
Your worst nightmare scenario: I predict that you’d experience brain freeze if you wereRead More having a procedure right here in Malibu at your friendly gastroenterologist’s place just as a smoke alarm went off in his office. You’d be a real quandary, namely, “When, what, where and how to evacuate?” In this case, the Santa Ana winds would blow from inside, as well as outside, the doctor’s office, in which case, both you and the good doc would evacuate pell-mell (or, should I say, pell-smell?). In anticipation of this high-pressure scenario, perhaps it’s in your best interest to hop onto the I-80 and (re) evacuate the 2831.67 miles back East, from whence you came, to avoid this potential sensory overload occurrence. In the meantime, should we get hit with another fire (G-d forbid), our Firefighter heroes, upon entering your home, would exclaim on their megaphone, "OK everyone, if you follow my commands and remain calm, everyone will be safe. Therefore, in accordance with International Red Cross protocol and common-sense guidelines, please make way for Burt, the children, the woman, the elderly and, finally, able-bodied men, to evacuate, in that order!"
David Armstead May 20, 2013 at 01:26 pm
the People of Malibu better wake up! this issue with Paradise Cove is only going to get worse. TheRead More city and Paradise Cove are working on an expansion of the parking there. See the link to a recent meeting at the city that is the beginning of Paradise coves expansion. It is very quiet and no one knows but look at the plan. Currently Paradise Cove does not have the proper Zoning to be doing what they do down there. The city thinks by letting them expand that it will get people off the highway so they are in favor but in reality it only puts more money into the pockets of Paradise Cove and people will still park on PCH and Paradise Cove will continue to sends drunks out onto the road to endanger all of us. Speak up! http://www.malibucity.org/download/index.cfm/fuseaction/download/cid/20457/
webecool May 20, 2013 at 03:26 pm
I ate lunch Friday at the Adamson House lawn and nearly 'chuncked out' with the smell of sewage.Read More Uggggg! It was worse than the biggest sewage spill that Paradise Cove ever had in the 15 years living there. I'm not a scientist like everyone else who has been arguing about this project but I know the smell of 8hit when I smell it. Something is seriously wrong. I am a mechanical engineer and it seems to me that all the scientists and smart designers have not taken into account any fluid dynamics. Water flows in, water flows out....water flows through. How hard is that? It seems to me they have designed what is called turbulence!
steve dunn May 19, 2013 at 04:43 pm
All I get on this blog is an ad for verizon
Jessica E. Davis (Editor) May 17, 2013 at 03:51 pm
Love that you are using the message board to ask this question. Does any one have any ideas?
M Stanley May 16, 2013 at 01:33 pm
Thank you for the information Jessica!
Jessica E. Davis (Editor) May 15, 2013 at 05:54 pm
Also, first make sure you are signed in, and if you can't go to the reset password link here:Read More http://malibu.patch.com/forgot_password.
Max May 15, 2013 at 11:03 am
Dear Phil (re: Burt's column), I can’t quite put my finger on it, but, I sense anRead More Eggs-itential undertone to all this. Does the chicken Egg-ist on behalf of the egg or vice versa? Eggs-perience will reveal the truth. To be complete, I must rehash Camus’ “The Play-egg.” Yet, as I recall, in the Book of Eggs-odous, there wasn’t a single Play-egg, but ten of them… so many, in fact, that it seems to many readers to be literally a Dozen Play-eggs. But, then again, I’m not very religious. In fact, many of my colleagues take me for an Egg-nostic. But, they are such Hard-boiled fanatics, that, in fact, their peers surmise they boarder on Egg-lectic. But, as Burt always says in da ‘hood, “Om-letting them be what they want to be.” We, however, have one on Burt: Rumor has it that he fell of the Vegan and had an egg salad… to which he Eggs-claims, “It was a serving of ‘Egg Beaters,’ you Egg-Heads!!”
Jessica E. Davis (Editor) May 14, 2013 at 10:27 pm
From my family: McCluckens
Susan Tellem May 14, 2013 at 07:35 pm
Call them Nuggets, Fricassee, Kiev, Marsala and Enchilada because that's what chickens end up as onRead More the dinner plate. Just sayin'.