• Famed cougar P-22 is a rock star within the wildlife world, inspiring a novel, songs, murals, documentaries and festivals which have drawn hundreds since his demise in December 2022.• An advocate credit his life story with making the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing a actuality and galvanizing laws to construct extra.• However makes an attempt to get P-22 a star on the Hollywood Stroll of Fame have been rebuffed. He’s considered one of L.A.’s greatest celebrities, advocates say. Why can’t he get a star?
An advocate for L.A.’s most well-known feline, P-22, is asking why the puma can’t get a star on the Hollywood Stroll of Fame, which has honorees together with Lassie and Rin Tin Tin and fictional characters reminiscent of Batman and Godzilla.
“He is as Hollywood as anyone on that Walk of Fame,” conservationist Beth Pratt, regional government director of the Nationwide Wildlife Federation and chief of the Save L.A. Cougars marketing campaign, wrote in a textual content message Monday.
The celebs value cash to put in, greater than $75,000, plus a $250 nomination utility charge, however advocates say they’re assured they may simply elevate the money to honor considered one of L.A.’s greatest celebrities, who not solely has loads of recognition but additionally has made an actual distinction within the wildlife neighborhood. P-22’s story was used as inspiration for constructing the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing in Agoura Hills and has led to laws requiring jurisdictions across the state to create protected passages for wildlife.
Massive cat photographer Steve Winter labored for 15 months to seize this well-known picture of P-22 prowling below the Hollywood check in Griffith Park on June 5, 2013, at 11:02 p.m.
(Steve Winter / Nationwide Wildlife Federation)
Makes an attempt to get P-22 a star have been repeatedly rebuffed as a result of the cougar doesn’t have sufficient display screen credit, stated Pratt, although there are 4 documentaries about him — “The Secret Diary of P-22,” “America’s Most Infamous Mountain Lion,” “P22: That Cat That Changed America” and its sequel, “Strong Hunter.”
However it isn’t display screen credit per se that make somebody eligible, stated Ana Martinez, producer of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce’s Hollywood Stroll of Fame, which has been honoring stars on Hollywood Boulevard since 1958. Martinez has been at her put up for 37 years, and he or she’s seen loads of requests that haven’t made the reduce.
“They have to be entertainers,” she stated Monday. “He [P-22] is a beautiful animal, and I wish we could do something, but he doesn’t qualify. We get lots of requests — the Aflac duck wanted one, but he didn’t get one. They have to be entertainers in the entertainment business.”
A fast look on the listing of two,793 names on the Stroll of Fame reveals many names much less recognizable than P-22’,s reminiscent of longtime Selection columnist Military Archerd and entertainer and impersonator Fred Travalena, in addition to a number of stars that includes the names of characters that don’t exist in actual life, together with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Massive Chook, Kermit the Frog, Shrek, Winnie the Pooh and Woody Woodpecker.
Folks crowd the sidewalk on Hollywood Boulevard posing or stars on the Stroll of Fame.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Instances)
The cartoon characters are included to attraction to kids strolling the route, Martinez stated. And once more, she added, they’re all entertainers.
There have been exceptions: The Apollo 11 mission obtained recognition on the Stroll of Fame in 1973, “with a uniquely designed special award in the category of Television as a tribute to the first televised Walk on the Moon,” in accordance with the Stroll of Fame web site. Nonetheless, Martinez emphasised, Apollo 11’s recognition is within the type of spherical plaques in any respect 4 corners of Hollywood and Vine, itemizing the names of the astronauts concerned within the first moon touchdown. “They do not have Walk of Fame stars,” she stated.
P-22 walks out of a drain pipe in Griffith Park at 1:09 a.m. Dec.19, 2016, greater than 4 years after he was first noticed within the park.
(Miguel Ordeñana)
In 2019, Automobile and Driver reported that the Chevrolet Suburban had gotten a star on the boulevard — “the first inanimate object to be so honored,” in accordance with the publication, as a result of “Chevy’s largest SUV has been in more than 1,750 films, and has made an appearance in a movie every year since 1960.” However that “star” was only a publicity stunt, Martinez stated.
It was by no means truly put in on Hollywood Boulevard’s Stroll of Fame. It was on personal property, she stated, and later, Chevrolet took the star on the highway to show at reveals.
Pratt disagrees with the concept that P-22 doesn’t qualify as an entertainer.
“He IS more Hollywood than any celebrity — the Brad Pitt of the cougar world. But did Brad actually sleep under the Hollywood sign at night?” Pratt stated by way of textual content, referring to a well-known Steve Winter picture of P-22 strolling below the Hollywood signal at evening.
That time is definitely debatable, however it’s onerous to think about a Hollywood script extra dramatic and poignant than P-22’s life story.
He was born within the Santa Monica Mountains round 2010, and he will need to have had many lovely moments as a frolicking cub. However issues obtained darkish when he approached maturity and needed to flee his house to flee demise from an older, stronger and really territorial male — his father, P-1 — whom researchers imagine had already killed considered one of his mates and a minimum of two of his cubs prior to now.
A distant digicam set by Miguel Ordeñana, a researcher on the Pure Historical past Museum of Los Angeles County, captured P-22 climbing down some rocks in Griffith Park.
(Miguel Ordeñana / Pure Historical past Museum)
That is the way in which for male cougars, extremely territorial creatures that choose a “home range” of greater than 100 sq. miles for searching and mating. It’s difficult in Los Angeles, nonetheless, as a result of these inexperienced areas are crisscrossed with freeways which have led to the deaths of many different cougars that tried to roam.
P-22 obtained fortunate, nonetheless. The younger tawny cougar with the broad, good-looking options headed east for practically 50 miles to flee his father, wandering by no matter inexperienced areas he may discover “and probably more than few backyards,” Pratt stated.
Researchers imagine he adopted the spine of the Santa Monica Mountains, crossing the 405 Freeway after which possible following the slender inexperienced area alongside Mulholland Drive, Pratt stated, to the 101 Freeway. Someday in early February 2012, researchers imagine he wandered off the Mulholland Scenic Parkway on the Jerome C. Daniel Overlook above the Hollywood Bowl and crossed the 101 to enter Griffith Park within the shadow of the Hollywood signal.
A map displaying the 50-mile route researchers imagine P-22 took between his birthplace within the Santa Monica Mountains to Griffith Park.
(Kate Keeley / Nationwide Wildlife Federation)
His entry was observed virtually instantly on Feb. 12, 2012, because of cameras arrange by Buddies of Griffith Park to doc wildlife there. “The Friends were doing a study with Miguel Ordeñana [of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County], and he was checking the cameras, zipping through thousands of photos of mostly skunks and coyotes and then he was like, ‘Oh, my God. Is that a mountain lion?,’” Pratt stated final week. “It was like seeing Big Foot in Griffith Park. What a moment.”
It wasn’t lengthy after that biologists had been in a position to collar P-22 to trace his actions, and for the following 10 years, he thrilled and typically terrified the neighborhood with rare sightings such because the time he determined to hang around below the crawl area of a household house in Los Feliz in 2015.
In March 2014, scientists captured P-22 after noticing crusting on his hair and pores and skin and handled him for mange.
(Nationwide Park Service)
He was handled for a foul case of mange and different maladies in 2014, however he by no means discovered a mate, so far as scientists may uncover, though Pratt holds out hope that his DNA will flip up in some younger cougar sometime. And he by no means left his tiny (a minimum of for male cougars) territory round Griffith Park, which is simply 6.5 sq. miles. He was mainly trapped by human improvement, Pratt stated, however there have been loads of deer there attracted by the various human-made “celebrity gardens” within the properties across the park. So even when P-22 was unfortunate in love, his stomach was possible full.
Extra essential, although, was the way in which P-22 impressed individuals to acknowledge the plight of wildlife reduce off from pure roaming grounds by freeways. His story helped make the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing a actuality, Pratt stated. It’s below building now in Agoura Hills with a scheduled opening in late 2025 or early 2026.
P-22 was hit by a automotive someday in December 2022, and when docs captured him to examine his accidents on Dec. 12, they found he additionally had a number of untreatable well being points, together with second-stage kidney failure, Pratt stated. He was euthanized 5 days later, on Dec. 17, 2022, inflicting an ideal outpouring of grief, together with tales, documentaries, songs and festivals to rejoice his life. And his story impressed bipartisan laws to create wildlife corridors across the state, Pratt stated.
California Division of Fish and Wildlife captured a sickly and injured P-22 within the yard of a house within the Los Feliz space of Los Angeles on Dec. 12, 2022.
(Sarah Picchi)
Greater than 15,000 individuals attended the primary pageant honoring his life final 12 months, and a minimum of 10,000 turned out for this 12 months’s pageant final Saturday, she stated. It’s a uncommon Angeleno who doesn’t acknowledge the identify P-22.
Pratt simply accomplished the non-public pilgrimage she’s made for the final 9 years: following the 50-mile route P-22 took to flee his father and settle in Griffith Park.
Together with his monitoring collar and distant cameras out and in of the park, P-22 was virtually as surveilled because the title character in “The Truman Show.” Pratt had at all times longed to identify him within the wild, however she didn’t meet him nose to nose till the evening earlier than he was euthanized, when she sat exterior his enclosure making an attempt to assuage him with phrases.
“He didn’t have to, but he sat next to me; I could feel his breath,” she stated, “and I told him he was a good boy.”
Once they couldn’t get him a Stroll of Fame star, Pratt commissioned L.A. artist Corie Mattie to present the puma a “star” in a mural on the facet of a constructing at 6421 Hollywood Blvd., between Cahuenga Boulevard and Wilcox Avenue. The mural was formally unveiled Oct. 16.
Months after P-22 was handled for mange in March 2014, he appeared a lot more healthy on this picture captured by a distant digicam.
(Nationwide Park Service)
Regardless of all this recognition for P-22, Pratt stated she received’t quit on getting him his spot on the Stroll of Fame.
“The mural is an amazing tribute, but he deserves a star,” Pratt wrote in a textual content. “You cannot over-memorialize P-22. People in L.A. and all over the world have a deep connection to him that didn’t end with his death. And what a wonderful precedent to have a wild animal on the Walk of Fame to inspire people to help protect the wild world. P-22 is a celebrity. And in Hollywood, celebrities never die.”