A young mountain lion that had just been added to a study of Southern California cougars was struck by a vehicle and killed on Pacific Coast Highway.
The National Park Service says the subadult male dubbed P-104 was hit Wednesday morning, just two weeks after he was captured and fitted with a GPS radio collar in the western portion of the Santa Monica Mountains.
The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, Malibu division, said they received a call about the dead mountain lion just before 8 a.m. According to the caller, it looked like P-104 had been run over a few times.
Cougars in the coastal range west of Los Angeles have been studied for 20 years by biologists to determine how they survive in fragmented and urbanized habitat.
P-104 was the 25th mountain lion to be killed by a vehicle since the study began in 2002.