BY ED BROWNE ON 9/8/22 AT 5:33 AM EDT00:11
California Mountain Lion P-54 Pokes Around Wildlife Camera In 2018
SHARE https://www.newsweek.com/mountain-lion-killed-california-car-collision-pregnant-cubs-1740942
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on RedditShare on FlipboardShare via EmailComments
U.S.WILDLIFENATURECALIFORNIAPOLLUTION
Amountain lion struck and killed by a vehicle in California was pregnant with four cubs at the time she died, post-mortem examinations have shown. Her death came just three months after losing her own 18 month old cub in a road accident, and four years after her mother was killed in another collision.
Mountain lions once used to occupy the entire United States coast-to-coast, but today they are mostly found in 14 western states. The Mountain Lion Foundation charity estimates the national population is unlikely to be more than 30,000.
One June 17, a five-year-old mountain lion known as P-54 was killed on Las Virgenes Road in the Santa Monica mountains. She was born in January 2017, and National Park Service (NPS) researchers fitted her with a tracking device the following month.
Post-mortem inspection showed that the mountain lion died from traumatic injuries as a result of the collision. She was pregnant with four kittens at full term when she was killed. “In this case, it is also unfortunate because the death of P-54 from a vehicle resulted in the loss of four other young mountain lions, two males and two females, that were about to enter the population,” biologist Jeff Sikich, from the mountain lion project at Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, said in a statement.
P-54’s mother, P-23, was also struck and killed by a vehicle along the same road in 2018.
Testing also showed that the mountain lion had five anticoagulant rat poison chemicals in her liver, while a further neurotoxic rat poison was found in her abdominal fat tissue.
Similar findings are common in almost every other mountain lion tested in and around the Santa Monica mountains, but P-54’s case presented a unique opportunity for NPS researchers to test mountain lion fetuses for the rat poison chemicals as well.
Exposing the Big Game 
Reblogged this on Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting Blog.
Very depressing….you can be sure the driver was speeding.
Agree Renee!
Everybody is in a big hurry while wasting gasoline in their oversized pickup trucks to buy more crap they dont need to replenish the landfills.☹️