An Ode to Hollywood's P-22
Earlier
this week, wildlife officials here in Southern
California captured an aging celebrity, a
12-year-old mountain lion whom we’ve named P-22. The big cat is a
much-revered figure in the land of the famous,
having survived a delicate cohabitation with
humans amid the coastal woodlands of the
Hollywood Hills. He was captured because he has
turned to predation on Chihuahuas, a sign that
he is getting too old and too tired to hunt
deer.
This morning, I read that
P-22 will not return to the wild. He is
underweight, and his coat is thinning, and he
has an injury to his right eye, “likely,” the
Los Angeles Times reported, “the result
of recent vehicular trauma.” He has been treated
with antibiotics and will undergo a CT scan,
and, depending on health assessments, will
either be euthanized and held in captivity.
Either way, his run as a wild thing is at an
end.
As an environmental journalist, I
know that we should not make too much a symbol
of what are called charismatic megafauna.
But it is hard not to see P-22’s ignoble capture
and impending death or imprisonment as symbolic
of a greater diminishment. As we humans hurl
through the twenty-first century, devouring wild
spaces, wiping out birds and bees, parching
rivers, and bleaching reefs, news of a specific
loss, like that of P-22, hits
hard.
The key, I think, is knowing
what to do with this kind of gut-punch. We must
understand these moments as calls to action, to
do better. We must think harder about our
relationships to our wild kin, and do what work
we can, wherever we can, to keep them. This is
how we honor P-22. We should remember him
roaming the dark hills of Griffith Park, beyond
the city lights, forever free in our collective
imagination, which needs all the wild it can
hold.
Brian
Calvert
Associate Editor,
Earth Island
Journal
PS: The Journal
will be taking a holiday break from December 26
through the New Year. We wish you all a happy
and restorative year end.
Photo of Griffith Park,
Los Angeles: Boqiang
Liao |
