Hollywood's Famed P-22 Mountain Lion Ventures Out For A Drink

LOS ANGELES, CA — Everyone loves a refreshing drink at the end of a hot day, even LA's coolest cat. A large cat believed to be the famed city-dwelling mountain lion P-22 was spotted sipping from a sprinkler in Loz Feliz recently.

Like the rest of Los Angeles, the puma went looking for ways to beat the heat Sunday, venturing outside Griffith Park where it was spotted on Griffith Park Boulevard sharing a busy city sidewalk with some very startled pedestrians.

One of those pedestrians was Los Feliz resident Victoria Calleja, who was walking her dog with her husband late Sunday night when she did a double take.

"We always walk down here with our dog," Calleja told NBC Los Angeles. "As I kind of rounded that corner and just looked at him we were looking at each other square in the eyes."

Calleja said they picked up their pup and slowly backed away from the world's most famous mountain lion.

Though startling, the encounter was also thrilling.

"It was honestly the best celebrity encounter I ever had living in LA to just run into him," Calleja added.

SEE ALSO: Mountain Lion Was Pregnant With 4 Cubs When Fatally Struck By Car

Ever since he became the only mountain lion ever known to have crossed the San Diego (405) and Hollywood (101) freeways and got his picture taken with the Hollywood sign, P-22 has become something of a legend.

And if there is one thing P-22 is famous for, it’s his tendency to wander. In late August he was caught wandering through a Beachwood Canyon neighborhood by a resident's doorbell camera.

In March, he was caught on camera foraging in Silver Lake, startling neighbors and passersby. In 2015, he famously took up residence in the crawl space of a Hollywood Hills home, giving a home security installer the scare of a lifetime.

In 2016, he was accused of mauling a koala to death at the Los Angeles Zoo. The incident prompted some officials at the time to consider relocating him before disaster struck.

But he’s remained at the park, making the occasional foray into surrounding neighborhoods.

When P-22 wandered deep into Silver Lake this year, the National Park Service warned residents not to become so star-struck that they put themselves in the crosshairs of an apex predator.

“We need to have a healthy respect for these animals. They deserve that. They are wild animals, not cute pets,” Ana Beatriz Cholo, a public information officer for the National Park Service said at the time. The National Park Service has been tracking P-22 for 10 years.

P-22 is about 11-years-old, a ripe old age for a puma. He has his own Facebook and Instagram pages, and has appeared on the cover of National Geographic.

“People hear about P-22 and think ‘this is our celebrity local mountain lion,’” said Beatriz Cholo. “If you are in an urban area, you might feel a little safer and might feel tempted to take a photo, but don’t. Give him space to get past you.”

No one really knows why P-22 wanders so far from Griffith Park.

P-22 has ample access to his favorite food — mule deer — in Griffith Park, and there are no other lions known to be in the area to battle for territory. There are no female lions in the area for him to mate with. At 12 years old — he’s the oldest mountain lion being tracked — it seems unlikely he would be searching for a mate.

“We wish we knew. We wish we could ask him. We can’t even make educated guesses,” she said in March.

SEE ALSO:

• Famous Griffith Park Mountain Lion Shacks Up in Mansion's Crawl Space
• Celebrity Cougar P-22 Receives New Collar, Status Update
• Lion Becomes Instant Legend For Crossing The 405 Freeway
• It's A Girl! Meet LA's Newest Mountain Lion
• Mountain Lion Killed Trying to Cross the Freeway
• P-22 Mountain Lion To Be Featured In Nature Mural In Watts
• Gavin Newsom To Speak At Mountain Lion P-22 Festival