Mountain lion caught in Tesla’s headlights. Vladimir Polumiskov moved quickly and slowly, not wanting to attract unnecessary attention.
He put his two-year-old son back into his car seat, then got behind the wheel and quietly closed the door. His wife, Anastasiia Prokopenko, was in the passenger seat. She couldn’t believe what they were seeing.
“No way. No way,” she said. “Get in the car. Get in the car.
The family had just returned from a sushi dinner on Tuesday night and pulled into a parking space at an apartment complex off Barham Avenue in the Hollywood Hills. They live on the west side of Griffith Park and are used to seeing wildlife — coyotes, lynx, deer, foxes — wandering into their backyard. But mountain lions are extreme.
“We are not going out,” Prokopenko said.
Less than 13 feet away, the cat sat on the lower trunk of an oak tree, partially obscured by weeds, its golden fur highlighted in the bright light. Polumiskov, 30, picked up his phone and started filming.
“This guy is huge,” he said.
Although the National Park Service, which oversees the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and studies 4,000 acres of Griffith Park wildlife, has not confirmed the sighting, the possibility that mountain lions have made their home in this island wilderness could Doubtful.
Griffith Park’s king of mountain lions – a cat known as P-22 – roamed these hills for 10 years. He was captured in December 2022 and euthanized after a team of doctors determined he was too ill to return to the wild due to internal injuries and infection.
A few months earlier, Polumiskov said he had seen a P-22 sneak through the same parking lot and then escape. “I had the same reaction,” he said. “That’s not going to change. It’s shocking.
“Los Angeles misses P-22,” said Beth Pratt of the National Wildlife Federation, perhaps his most ardent advocate.
In February 2023, Platt helped organize a sell-out celebration of his incredible life in Griffith Park at the Greek Theater, attracting more than 6,000 people who wanted to pay their respects to the charismatic cat In homage, it is surrounded by development, freeways and cemeteries, living a quiet life in the heart of Los Angeles.
Seven months later, the eighth official P-22 Days Festival attracted 15,000 attendees.
When Platt first heard about the new sighting, she felt a little overwhelmed.
“It’s good for my heart,” she said. “It feels like the P-22s are sending people back to us – just to give us hope that we haven’t completely eliminated the wildness from our lives.”
Spokeswoman Ana Beatriz Cholo said the National Park Service was taking the claims seriously and that the agency had reviewed Polumiskov’s film.
The Park Service has been studying mountain lion populations in the Santa Monica Mountains since 2002, when the Park Service collared the first cougar and gave it the name P-1 (P for P. meaning lion). Since then, it has tracked and collared 121 animals in the park.
If it were collared, the big cat in last week’s video would be P-122.
Footage of a mountain lion spotted Tuesday near Barnum Boulevard in Toluca Hills, New Hollywood. (Vladmir Polumsko)
“I’m a scientist at heart, but there’s something almost mystical about this,” Platt said, referring to the chance of coincidence that the two Griffith Park cats had such similar numbers.
Park Service researchers are conducting interviews and combing through wildlife camera footage throughout Griffith Park.
“We obviously want to make sure we confirm this is true,” Ciolo said. “Hopefully we can achieve this in the near future.”
But she added that beyond hope, there’s no guarantee the mountain lions will stay. Mountain lions require up to 200 square miles of habitat, and Griffith Park provides slightly more than 8 square miles of habitat.
After filming the video, Polumiskov put the Tesla in reverse and found another parking spot farther away from the Mountain Lion. Two hours later, he returned with his friend and the cat was still there.
“He’s still sitting in that tree, looking at us,” he said. “He’s a very, very beautiful animal, young and healthy, and probably the largest mountain lion I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Four months ago, Polumiskov was driving when he saw what he thought was also a mountain lion. But without evidence, his family and friends became suspicious of him. Now he had something more tangible.
The next day, he got a call from Jeff Sikich, a wildlife biologist and Park Service mountain lion expert, who asked him a few simple questions — where and when — and reminded him He wants to proceed with caution.
“He really educated me,” Polumikov said.
“While it’s exciting to see wild animals,” Ciolo said, “if you see a cougar, give it space. Don’t follow it. Although it may be tempting, this is a big cat and its Behavior can be unpredictable.
The total number of mountain lions in California is estimated to be between 3,200 and 4,500. There are said to be about a dozen cats living in the Santa Monica Mountains, and they are at risk of extinction due to low genetic diversity.
A wildlife corridor currently being constructed on a 10-lane stretch of Highway 101 in Liberty Canyon in Agoura Hills promises to be a critical lifeline for endangered species. When completed in 2026, it will be the largest bridge of its kind in the world (200 feet long and 165 feet wide) and the most expensive.
“The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing is critical to the survival of this species,” Platt said. “But Griffith Park also needs safe routes for wildlife to navigate the city.”
