There’s a secret I have to share with you. I think I was a puma in a previous life, living in the Rockies in western North America. You might laugh but I am deadly serious. I was athletic and lived a solitary existence. And, in keeping with true puma lifestyle, I was prone to leaping from rock to rock, springing across wide, deep precipices or bounding up trees – just because I could.
Since I was a child, I have always identified with this slinky cat, though I have yet to actually see one. A few years ago, I was in the west Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles on an afternoon walk through a well-vegetated canyon. On seeing an unknown sparrow dart into some brush I decided to go in after it, eventually getting myself deep into the tangle and quite a distance from the trail.
Suddenly, I heard a loud crashing in the nearby thick bushes and was aware of being in the presence of a large, unseen animal. This was no deer; it had to be a puma. Despite my excitement I clicked into self-preservation mode. I had to retreat. I certainly did not want to be a news item in the LA Times: “British tourist mauled by puma in Franklyn Canyon.”
Had I been in nearby Griffith Park I could have claimed a brush with P-22, the ‘celebrity puma’ that was the most famous of its kind in Los Angeles, perhaps even in the world. Though it is one of the largest municipal parks with wilder areas in the USA, at 1,740ha Griffith Park is minuscule in a puma’s world. These cats need upwards of 390km2 to roam around in.
P-22 had somehow managed to cross two potentially deadly freeways to settle in Griffith Park. The puma was first spotted in 2012 when his image was taken by a camera trap, and his fame erupted once he was featured within the pages of National Geographic. But he was trapped in an urban green oasis with no chance of meeting a mate. Despite lingering for 10 years his survival echoed the problems that these cats and other wildlife face in urban areas.
The puma is not a proper big cat in the Panthera genus like the African lion or jaguar. The main thing separating those big guys from the smaller cats is their ability to roar, due to the rigid hyoid bone situated at the front of their throats. Thus the puma could be best described as a large small cat equipped with the ability to purr – something that the small cats have over the big cats.
Read more
- Why do cats purr? The fascinating reasons behind the feline purr
- "Want to hear a tiger cub roar? It’s unforgettable!” Camera trap captures rare moment in Asian jungle
Los Angeles is one of only two megacities in the world (the other is Mumbai) where large cats occur within the bustling city limits, and the animals have adapted to become increasingly nocturnal in order to avoid people. Encounters are rare and there have been no fatalities to date. But there are threats to their existence. The urban habitat is fragmented due to development and road building, which is the main reason that the animals meet untimely ends, under the wheels of vehicles.
Additionally, there is a limited gene pool due to the cats being locked in by busy freeways and not able to disperse widely. Finally, the widespread use of anticoagulant rodenticides has taken its toll, with the animals ingesting them via their prey. This is the fate that befell the beloved P-22. When captured, he had to be put down due to rat poisoning. LA had lost a feline legend. So I have to regard my potential close encounter as a very precious moment.
Main image: P-22. Credit: Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
