WASHINGTON: Hollywood Cat is no longer.
The Los Angeles area’s most famous mountain lion, an aged wild male feline sighted around the city’s Griffith Park, was euthanized Saturday, wildlife officials said.
For years, it was known to prowl around the hillside “Hollywood” sign visible around much of Los Angeles, a fitting setting for a celebrity cat.
It earned the nickname Hollywood Cat, but the mountain lion — estimated to be around 11 years old — is officially called P-22.
State and federal wildlife officers decided earlier this month to capture it due to its erratic behavior, perhaps associated with being struck by a vehicle.
Veterinarians found “significant trauma” to its head, right eye and internal organs, California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a statement.
The experts also found underlying health issues, including “irreversible kidney disease, chronic weight loss, extensive parasitic skin infection over his entire body and localized arthritis.”
“The most difficult, but compassionate choice was to respectfully minimize his suffering and stress by humanely ending his journey,” the statement said.
“Mountain lion P-22 has had an extraordinary life and captured the hearts of the people of Los Angeles and beyond.”
Euthanizing the cougar was a punch to the gut for game experts who had grown to love the animal.
“This really hurts,” said Chuck Bonham, director of the Department of Fish and Wildlife, when he announced P-22’s death, according to USA Today.
“It’s been an incredibly difficult several days.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom praised P-22’s “incredible journey” in a statement.
“P-22’s survival on an island of wilderness in the heart of Los Angeles captivated people around the world,” Newsom said.
Griffith Park, where P-22 lived for perhaps a decade, is hemmed in by freeways and urban sprawl. It is a nine-square-mile (23-square-kilometer) isolated patch of nature.
Experts marveled at how the wild cat got across either of two major Los Angeles freeways — the 405 and 101 — to get to Griffith Park as early as 2012.
In a profile of P-22 done long before its death, the National Park Service lamented that Griffith Park is too small for a second cougar, and “it’s unlikely he will ever find love with a female lion.”
The cat’s renown was due to frequent sightings, video doorbell cameras and physical encounters.
A Facebook page in honor of the cougar has over 20,000 followers.
Beloved ‘Hollywood Cat’ mountain lion euthanized in Los Angeles
https://arab.news/8dy77
Beloved ‘Hollywood Cat’ mountain lion euthanized in Los Angeles
- State and federal wildlife officers decided earlier this month to capture it due to its erratic behavior
- Veterinarians found ‘significant trauma’ to its head, right eye and internal organs
Researchers find 10,000-year-old rock art site in Sinai
- The natural rock shelter’s ceiling features numerous red-pigment drawings of animals and symbols, as well as inscriptions in Arabic and Nabataean
- Some engravings reflect the lifestyles and economic activities of early human communities
CAIRO: Archeologists have discovered a 10,000-year-old site with rock art in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, the country’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said.
The previously unknown site on the Umm Irak Plateau features a 100-meter-long rock formation whose diverse carvings trace the evolution of human artistic expression from prehistoric times to the Islamic era.
The Supreme Council of Antiquities “has uncovered one of the most important new archeological sites, of exceptional historical and artistic value,“the ministry said in a statement.
Its chronological diversity makes it “an open-air natural museum,” according to the council’s secretary-general, Hisham El-Leithy.
The natural rock shelter’s ceiling features numerous red-pigment drawings of animals and symbols, as well as inscriptions in Arabic and Nabataean.
Some engravings “reflect the lifestyles and economic activities of early human communities,” the ministry said.
Inside, animal droppings, stone partitions, and hearth remains confirm that the shelter was used as a refuge for a long time.
These “provide further evidence of the succession of civilizations that have inhabited this important part of Egypt over the millennia,” Tourism and Antiquities Minister Sherif Fathi said.
He described the discovery as a “significant addition to the map of Egyptian antiquities.”
The site is located in southern Sinai, where Cairo is undertaking a vast megaproject aimed at attracting mass tourism to the mountain town of Saint Catherine, a UNESCO World Heritage site and home to Bedouin who fear for their ancestral land.
