The Cat That Changed America book is based on a true life story. As authors we look for stories which entertain and tell emotional truths, so it was a gift to find this true life story and turn it into a novel.
P22 mountain lion has recently been caught by wildlife biologists for a routine check and to change his radio collar battery early this month February 2020.
His vital statistics weighed in at 123 pounds and he is in healthy condition. At 11 years old, he’s become one of the oldest mountain lions who has been tracked in the nearly two-decade-long study.
“For an old Cat, P22 still got it going” says the Santa Monica National Park Area.
P22 made an incredible journey from his birthplace in the Santa Monica Mountains, crossing two freeways the 405 and the 101, before settling in Griffith Park. He’s been living in the park since February 2012 at least, where he was photographed on a camera trap by wildlife biologist Miguel Ordenana.
Through genetic testing, biologists were able to trace P22 to his birth place in the Santa Monica Mountains and even find out who is father is.
Since then, he has been tracked with a GPS radio collar by the National Park Service wildlife biologists led by Jeff Sikich who has been monitoring the mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains area. P22’s father was called P1, the first Puma caught for the study and lived to at least 12 years old. The oldest female mountain lion in the study is P-19 who celebrated giving birth to her fifth litter of kittens last year. Mountain lions typically live from 12 to 14 years in the wild, so P22 is an old cat now but a healthy one.
“That’s an amazing feat unmatched by any other mountain lion (as far as we know),” says the Santa Monica Mountains rep. Mountain lions typically need very large territories, about 150 square miles of home range for hunting. But P22’s range in Griffith Park is only 9 square miles, though he has a ready supply of mule deer in the park, unfortunately he is trapped by freeways and will never find a mate.
P-22 is also one of the oldest mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains study and may he enjoy many more years. You can find out more about P22 by watching “The Cat That Changed America” which is available on Vimeo on Demand. And an imaginative retelling of his journey to Griffith Park is told in a book to accompany the film.
#goodnews #wildlife #cats #nature #animals #california #usa #losangeles #p22 #mountainlion #lockdown #homeschool #wildlifefilmmaker #books #authors #kids #bigcats #cats #homeschool #hometeach #schooling #endoflockdown #wildlifefilms #wildlifedocs
You can watch the film here:
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/p22
tonyleemoralbooks.com 