“Before I said goodbye, I sat in a conference room with team members from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the team of doctors at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. And I left with a great sadness I will carry for the rest of my days.

“I don’t have any illusion that my presence or words comforted him. I apologized that despite all I and others who cared for him did, we failed him. And I told him I was so sorry that we did not make the world a safer place for him. I sat near him, looking into his eyes for a few minutes, and told him he was a good boy. Although I have advocated for his protection for a decade, we had never met before. “I am so grateful I was given the opportunity to say goodbye to P-22. I hope his future is filled with endless forests without a car or road in sight and where deer are plentiful, and I hope he finally finds the mate that his island existence denied him his entire life. 'Biologists and veterinarians with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced today they have made the difficult decision to end P-22’s suffering and help him transition peacefully to the next place. It’s hard to imagine I will be writing about P-22 in the past tense now. “I can’t finish this sentence without crying because of the past tense. “Yet a mountain lion lived here, right here in Los Angeles. The lights of the city give the sky no peace. Burbank Peak and the other hills that mark the terminus of the Santa Monica Mountains emerge from this urban island like sentinels making a last stand against the second largest city in the country. “I write this eulogy while looking across one of the ten-lane freeways P-22 somehow miraculously crossed in 2012, gazing at a view of his new home, Griffith Park.

Trouble by Non Pratt