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Photos: Adorable Mountain Lion Kittens Enjoy A Meal With Mom
While we've been keeping tabs on the famous Griffith Park mountain lion, P-22—the one that recently wandered into the crawlspace of a Los Feliz home—another cougar, P-39, has been quietly raising her new kittens over in the Santa Susana Mountains. And we have photos of said adorable kittens.
The National Park Service recently snapped these pictures using a remote digital camera of P-39 feeding on a mule deer with at least two of her kittens who are believed to be about 7 months old, according to KPCC. They were spotted in the eastern end of the Santa Susana Mountains, which is between Santa Clarita and Chatsworth. (Warning: a few of the photos are graphic.)
Since P-39 is only about 3 to 4 years old, biologists believe this is her first litter of kittens, according to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area Facebook page, which posted these snapshots. At first, researchers only knew about P-39 having one kitten, but now with these photos they have discovered she has at least one other kitten in her litter.
"So one of the things we're really interested in seeing is when these 7-month-old kittens grow up and it's time for them to leave their mom, where will they go?" Kate Kuykendall, spokesperson for the National Park Service told KPCC. "Will they find a new territory out on their own? And that's particularly important for young males."
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