Cougar Crossing: How Hollywood's Celebrity Cougar Helped Build a Bridge for City Wildlife
By:
Illustrator: Alexander Vidal
Discover the amazing true story of P-22, the wild cougar living in Los Angeles, in this inspiring picture book.
P-22, the famed “Hollywood Cougar,” was born in a national park near Los Angeles, California. When it was time for him to leave home and stake a claim to his own territory, he embarked on a perilous journey—somehow crossing sixteen lanes of the world’s worst traffic—to make his home in LA’s Griffith Park, overlooking the famed Hollywood sign. But Griffith Park is a tiny territory for a mountain lion, and P-22’s life has been filled with struggles.
Residents of Los Angeles have embraced this brave cougar as their own and, along with the scientists monitoring P-22, raised money to build a wildlife bridge across Highway 101 to help cougars and other wildlife safely expand their territories and build new homes—ensuring their survival for years to come.
“Twenty Years of LA’s Mountain Lions.” Cougar facts. “Wildlife Crossings, by the Numbers.” Author’s note. Selected bibliography. Full-color illustrations rendered digitally.
ISBN: 9781534461857
JLG Release: Apr 2021
Sensitive Areas:
None
Topics:
Wildlife crossings
, Los Angeles, California
, Hollywood
, Pumas
, Cougars
, Animal conservation
, Urban wildlife
, Griffith Park
, Wildlife biologists
, National Park Service
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Praise & Reviews
Starred or favorable reviews have been received from these periodicals:
Horn Book
With human development leading to urban sprawl, suburban expansion, and the building of multi-lane highways, wild animals have increasingly limited access to their natural habitats. In Cougar Crossing, the impact of urbanization is represented by a lone mountain lion, named P-22, who resides in Los Angeles. P-22, the “Hollywood cougar,” was bor With human development leading to urban sprawl, suburban expansion, and the building of multi-lane highways, wild animals have increasingly limited access to their natural habitats. In Cougar Crossing, the impact of urbanization is represented by a lone mountain lion, named P-22, who resides in Los Angeles. P-22, the “Hollywood cougar,” was born in Santa Monica, in an area where all territory was occupied by other cougars; he has no choice but to find space in the city of Los Angeles, and constantly bumps up against human homes, zoos, highways, and diseases. P-22’s situation is leveraged to advocate for the building of a cougar bridge, an accessible connector for trapped wild animals to access open spaces. Examples of successful animal bridges, as well as other innovative structures, can be found in Crossings, where Duffield showcases not only wildlife overpasses but also the many creative structures used to get animals safely “over, under, across, [and] through” human-made barriers. Squirrel gliders in Australia and titi monkeys in Costa Rica use rope bridges to cross above highways; spotted salamanders in Massachusetts and blue penguins in New Zealand tunnel under them. Both books employ bold illustrations of the featured animals in unnatural urban environments, using the animal crossings, and safely living in less populated environs. Duffield’s book concludes with a spread of “Wildlife Crossings Around the World” and a brief bibliography; back matter in the Pincus includes a timeline of mountain lions in Los Angeles, cougar facts, information about wildlife crossings, identifications of “Wildlife of Southern California,” and a bibliography. DANIELLE J. FORD
Book Details
ISBN
9781534461857
First Release
April 2021
Genre
Nonfic
Dewey Classification
639.97
Trim Size
10 4/5" x 9 3/10"
Page Count
40
Accelerated Reader
N/AScholastic Reading Counts
N/ALexile
N/AFormat
Print Book
Edition
Hardcover edition
Publisher
Beach Lane
Potentially Sensitive Areas
None
Topics
Wildlife crossings, Los Angeles, California, Hollywood, Pumas, Cougars, Animal conservation, Urban wildlife, Griffith Park, Wildlife biologists, National Park Service,
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