Global Courant 2023-05-26 05:58:36
The Simi Hills is now home to three healthy female cougar kittens. Their names are P-113, P-114 and P-115.
The mountain lion named P-77 gave birth to the trio found last week in a dense patch of poison oaks in the hills between the Santa Susana and Santa Monica mountains, according to the National Park Service.
The kittens were about 24 days old when National Park Service biologists discovered their den northeast of Thousand Oaks. Biologists have been tracking mountain lions as part of a 20-year-long study with the state.
“It will be interesting to learn how these kittens will use the landscape as they get older and disperse, especially if they decide to stay in the Simi Hills or cross highways to enter larger wildlife areas,” says Jeff Sikich , the park service’s mountain lion study lead biologist. “It’s encouraging to see reproduction in our small population of mountain lions, especially after all the deaths we’ve documented over the past year.”
As of March 2022, 15 mountain lions have died in the study area, Sikich said; nine had a GPS radio collar and six had no collar. The majority died in fatal vehicle collisions, one died of scabies and one was shot, he said.
Park rangers find a new litter of mountain lion kittens in the Simi Hills. (National Park Service)
The most famous big cat to die was P-22, who was born in the Santa Monica Mountains. He died in December at the age of 12 after being hit by a car and euthanized due to long-term health problems and injuries.
According to a UC Davis study, 535 mountain lions are reported to be killed on California highways between 2015 and 2022. Mountain lions are killed faster than they can reproduce.
P-77, the mother of the three kittens, is estimated to be about 5 to 7 years old, and she established her adult range in a small patch between 101 and 118 highways, the National Park Service said. She was first captured in November 2019 and followed by biologists crossing both highways and spending time in the adjacent mountain ranges.
“Hopefully we can track these kittens as they grow and spread from their mother,” Sikich said. “It will be interesting if these kittens grow up and spread out. Will they cross the hills, cross the highways or to other areas.”
The kittens have been ear-tagged by biologists and can be radio-collared when they get older.
It is unclear who is the father of the new litter. Biologists suspect it came from the Santa Susana Mountains and left after mating with P-77.
Biologists believe this is the second litter of the P-77. This is the third nest in the Simi Hills observed by the biologists. One litter was born to P-62 in 2018 and P-67 in 2020, and both mothers have since passed away, according to the National Park Service.
Typically, 10 to 15 adult or juvenile mountain lions can be seen in the Santa Monica Mountains, not counting the cubs, Sikich said.
Continuing the format of the mountain lion study, the kittens were designated with “P” for cougar and a sequence number for their birth order.
“People can safely call them whatever you want to call them,” Sikich said. “It would just be hard to try and keep track of hundreds of names.”
