Up close and personal with P22
Local and national media outlets were all over the story and its surprising video clip as ‘weird news’ when a mountain lion was discovered in the crawl space under a house in Los Angeles, California recently.
The details and followup to the story were pretty much ignored in far-flung regional broadcasts, though, but Los Angeles Animal Services’ Elite Team of Animal Rescuers – or SMART – shared them, along with their video from the scene, on April 15.
SMART was called to the house, filmed the widely seen clip of the cat (and the media circus) and they tell the story here:
On April 13th 2015, SMART responded to a call for a mountain lion under a house in Los Feliz in Los Angeles.
Upon arrival, [team members] Nav and HD searched for the big cat with a Bullard Thermal Imager. At first, they didn’t see anything on the imager that would indicate a large animal until a closer (15 feet closer) look revealed the head of a large cat.
After taking some quick video to prove an actual mountain lion was seen laying comfortably under the house, the team notified Fish and Wildlife while the home owner notified the media.
At first, KNBC 4 was the only News crew on scene but as soon as it was confirmed that the big cat was in fact the famous P-22, the media circus began!
Reporters from KNX Radio, the LA Times, The LA Weekley, KNBC 4, KCBS 2, KCAL 9, Channel 7, Fox 11, Telemundo and a variety of other independent news people were swarming the area along with several news copters. Even Actor Kevin Bacon showed up.
In the end, Fish and Wildlife suggested that everyone leave (after the 8 hour standoff) to allow the big cat to leave on its own.
Later that night or early the next day, P-22 vacated the crawl space and went back home to Griffith Park. This was confirmed by National Parks Services.
Watch SMART’s video from the scene:
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