'LA's loneliest bachelor': How a mateless Hollywood puma inspired the world's biggest animal bridge

‘LA’s loneliest bachelor’: How a mateless Hollywood puma inspired the world’s biggest animal bridge

July 11, 2025

Steve Winter The puma P-22, fitted with a radio collar, wanders in front of the Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles, USA (Credit: Steve Winter) — P-22 was found roaming the Hollywood Hills, miles away from other mountain lions. Scientists fitted the puma with a radio collar which recorded his location (Credit: Steve Winter)

Inspired by a mountain lion isolated from potential mates, the world’s largest wildlife bridge is being built in Los Angeles to allow animals to roam freely.

There had been rumours for a few months in the Hollywood Hills that a 90lb (41kg) beast was skulking through one of Los Angeles’s most heavily trafficked parks at night. But it wasn’t until a camera captured a photo of a mountain lion in 2012 that scientists could confirm the lore.

P-22, P as in puma (another word for mountain lion), was a 1.5-year-old male the National Park Service determined had journeyed by himself nearly 30 miles (48km), crossing two major freeways, to end up in Griffith Park, in central LA just outside of Hollywood, where he took up permanent residence.

Nearly overnight, P-22 became Los Angeles’s newest celebrity – seen as a mascot for some locals. But P-22’s story was also one of isolation, for the mountain lion was miles away from others of his species and would likely stay mateless for life.

When Beth Pratt, California regional executive director at the non-profit National Wildlife Federation, first read about P-22, she immediately called Jeff Sikich, a wildlife biologist for the National Park Service.

“He gave me a tour of Griffith Park. And then he talked about not just P-22 but the entire mountain lion population in the Santa Monica Mountains. And P-22 was just one example. The worst example,” says Pratt.

Pratt learned from Sikich that while P-22 was rare in that he had survived leaving the western Santa Monica Mountains to cross into the eastern flank of the mountain range, he was not alone in his seclusion. Most of the mountain lions living in the western range were also stuck and inbreeding, because of how the city’s transportation infrastructure had evolved.

In fact, road development in Los Angeles has cut off many species from their normal roaming territory, from bobcats to birds. Solitary mountain lions, which seek out “home ranges” of up to 250 sq miles (648 sq km), are among the most affected.

“These roads were just literally dooming this population to extinction because they were trapped and isolated and were inbreeding themselves out of existence, which science was starting to show,” says Pratt. “And it was that day [at Griffith] I literally was like, ‘Oh my God. We have to do something.'”

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