Puma Profiles: P-97, the Young Mountain Lion Killed on the 405 Freeway

P-97 — male, first captured August 26, 2021, now deceased — is one of the mountain lions tracked by the National Park Service in the Santa Monica Mountains.

P-97. NPS.

A second litter

Trail cameras first picked him up in the winter of 2020, about 3 months old, with his mother P-54 and his brother P-98. It was P-54's second litter that year. In May 2020 she had given birth to three kittens — P-82, P-83 and P-84 — and started the "summer of kittens," when five mountain lion mothers gave birth between May and September. Researchers believe the May litter did not survive and that she gave birth again in late October.

Cleared by DNA

On August 26, 2021, his brother P-98 attacked a small child in an unincorporated area of Calabasas. California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials captured P-97, then 10 months old and with his mother, sedating him with a non-lethal dart; his DNA showed he was not involved. P-54 was not captured and later left the area. The next day, working with the state, Park Service biologists fitted P-97 with a radio collar and released him near where his mother was travelling, and the two were reunited.

On the freeway

On April 21, 2022, P-97 was struck and killed on the southbound 405 Freeway near the Getty Center. He was 18 months old, had recently left his mother, and was probably looking for a territory of his own. He was the fourth mountain lion killed in this general stretch of the ten-lane freeway.

Sources

• National Park Service, Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, "Puma Profiles: P-97." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/puma-profiles-p-97.htm
• NPS news release, "Mountain lion P-97 killed by vehicle strike": https://www.nps.gov/samo/learn/news/mountain-lion-p-97-killed-by-vehicle-strike.htm