P-22, LA celebrity mountain lion, euthanized due to severe injuries

LOS ANGELES — The mountain lion P-22, who lived in the heart of Los Angeles for more than a decade and became the face of an international campaign to save California’s threatened puma population, was “compassionately euthanized” Saturday morning, according to the California Department of Fish & Wildlife’s director, because of the serious injuries he suffered earlier this week.

P-22 was thought to be about 12 years old.

Wildlife biologists with the National Park Service and the state’s wildlife department captured the mountain lion in December after he began to exhibit increasing “signs of distress,” including three attacks on dogs in a month and several near-miss encounters with people walking in Los Feliz and Silver Lake. Scientists tracked the big cat to a Los Feliz back yard, where he may have been laying low after being