Mountain lion P-54, who was struck by a car and killed in the Santa Monica Mountains early this summer, was pregnant with four full-term kittens when she died, National Park Service officials announced Wednesday. That makes her death an even bigger blow for those concerned about the area’s dwindling mountain lion population.
It’s the first time in the 20 years the park service has been studying mountain lions in the area that they’ve been able to test fetuses for anticoagulant rodenticides, which can cause rats — and animals connected to them in the food chain, from hawks to foxes to mountain lions — to internally bleed to death. And the news wasn’t good.
But when the consumer ban was established, the state allowed licensed pest control companies to continue using them. And, four years later, the state reported that second-generation anticoagulants still were showing up in 90% of tested mountain lions, 88% of tested bobcats and 70% of tested northern spotted owls. Between the summer of 2018 and spring of 2019 alone, the deaths of four Southern California mountain lions were linked to rat poison..
Officials say the death of P-54 highlights two of the most dangerous elements for local wildlife: toxicants and vehicles. She was killed June 17 on Las Virgenes Road between Piuma Road and Mulholland Highway. After her body was taken to the California Animal Health and Food Safety Lab in San Bernardino, researchers determined her cause of death to be traumatic injuries, including multiple fractures to the ribs and left femur.