Los Angeles' Favorite Mountain Lion Holes Up In Los Feliz Home

Have you ever tried to get a cat to do, well, anything? Then you know the struggle of wildlife officials who tried to evict a mountain lion from the crawl space of a Los Feliz home last night.

P-22—also known as the Hollywood cougar and the Griffith Park mountain lion—was discovered by security crews working at a hillside home near Griffith Park yesterday, according to ABC 7. A rattled worker reported it to homeowner Jason Archinaco, who was incredulous at first: "I thought he was punking me, frankly."

They reported the mountain lion to city officials who called in state wildlife officials, who then proceeded to try to nudge the lion from the crawl space in the 2700 block of Glendower Avenue. But the lion did what every cat ever has done: whatever the heck he wanted. On a night devoid of any high-speed chases, it became something of a media spectacle. P-22 has been dubbed a hipster cat by East Coast rags but homeowner Paula Archinaco speculated that P-22 was enjoying his luxurious stay: "This is like the Ritz Carlton for mountain lions."

Officials shot beanbag rounds:

They shot tennis balls:

They tried to nudge him out:

But nothing seemed to work, and eventually around 10 p.m. they gave up, opened up the crawl space and hoped that P-22 would crawl out. This morning we got word that P-22 had left at some point over the night when everyone finally decided to leave him alone, of course:

David Baron, an expert on mountain lion-human relations, told the Los Angeles Times that the mountain lion might have learned his lesson about leaving the park and holing up in homes where humans live: "I would suspect that all those news crews and helicopters are providing some very serious aversive conditioning."

UPDATE: P-22 is doing exactly what he should be, roaming Griffith Park somewhere far, far away from the din of reporters. Officials are hoping to keep it that way: