Grrrl Power! Female Mountain Lion Crosses 101 Freeway

AGOURA HILLS, CA — A female mountain lion successfully crossed the Ventura (101) Freeway in the Agoura Hills area, National Park Service officials said Wednesday.

The lion known as P-65 crossed sometime between midnight and 2 a.m. Aug. 21 near the site of a planned a landscaped freeway crossing aimed at facilitating the movement of wildlife over the roadway, according to the NPS.

"Girl power! Or, rather, female mountain lion power. P-65 is making history as the second radio-collared female mountain lion to cross the 101 Freeway, moving northward into the Simi Hills, during the National Park Service’s 17-year-old study of these large cats that live in and adjacent to the city of Los Angeles," Ranger Ana Beatriz wrote on the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area Facebook page.

Data from the cat's GPS collar indicated the crossing happened in the Liberty Canyon area of Agoura Hills, where the wildlife bridge over the freeway is in the planning and fundraising stage, NPS said.

P-65, who notably survived the Woolsey Fire, has stayed up north and only crossed the freeway once, Ranger Beatriz said.

"She was not picked up on any of our remote cameras monitoring wildlife movement through a culvert or underpass in this area, so biologists believe she most likely ran across the actual roadway," she said.

P-33 is the only other collared female mountain lion to have crossed the 101 Freeway. She was a trailblazer when she crossed the 101 northward into the Simi Hills in March 2015 near the border of Thousand Oaks and Camarillo, Ranger Beatriz said. She eventually made her way to ‪Los Padres National Forest‬, which is the nearest source population for mountain lions — this was the first documented and successful dispersal out of the Santa Monica Mountains and into a new home range. Unfortunately, P-33 died of unknown causes last summer, the Facebook post said.

A male cat known as P-64 earned the nickname "Culvert Cat" by making repeated use of the underground passageway in the Liberty Canyon area. Another male lion, P-12, crossed the 101 Freeway in the same area in 2009, but it was unclear if he used the underground culvert or ran across the roadway.

P-12 is still roaming the Santa Monica Mountains. P-64 was found dead in December in the Simi Hills.

Freeways acting as physical barriers to migration have long been identified as threats to the continued survival of mountain lions in the area. At least one study has suggested that the lions will be extinct within 50 years due to the lack of breeding partners, leading to rampant inbreeding among the current population.

City News Service contributed to this post