HIS LEGACY

by adjusting the way they live, and making the cities and neighborhoods they live in more accommodating to wildlife in honor of P-22, and other wildlife that have passed so tragically because of us.

Ordeñana stated many people misunderstand what functions museums serve, and they assume that museums are “actively going out and killing animals for the purposes of profit, and none of that is used for research and conservation.” Museums do indeed display some animals in taxidermy halls. Those animals are a small part of any museum’s collection. In point of fact, “the majority of our 35 million specimens in our collection are behind the scenes, being preserved for the purposes of future research and conservation; that is our goal. The first priority is to preserve that legacy in our collections and if the community wants it, we use some of that for education, as long as we are doing it in a respectful way, and the communities that we need to talk to, especially historically excluded communities, are included in those conversations.” He admits, in the case of P-22, those conversations should have occurred much sooner.

In addition, he explained, “State agencies like the California Department of Fish and Wildlife need to have those conversations with tribal communities as well before they say to the Museum, you can have P-22 when he dies. They need to ask what the tribes think about that; what kind of adjustments do we need to make to this permit? I think those conversations didn’t occur, and there’s just a long history of those conversations not happening early enough. The Museum itself should have had those conversations earlier in the process. I think that’s something that we’re going to look into. We’re scheduling conversations right now with local tribes to see what to do next.” He added, “P-22 is now in our possession in a storage area in our museum. I’m still open for tribal members to come view and do blessings that they want to, but ultimately, it’s there basically in an interim kind of situation, and then we’re going to have conversations with local tribes to figure out what to do next, and what is a respectful way to honor his cultural legacy for indigenous tribes and others, but also how can we still come to compromise where some of that hopefully is preserved so that is used for future conservation, especially for a population that is so imperiled and at risk of extinction.”

Ordeñana, like many, was saddened by P-22’s death, “I mean that was really sad. I’ve been mentally trying to prepare myself for his death for a while because I’ve already known the lifespan or typical lifespan of mountain lions. He looked like his health was in decline for a while now, but you never are fully prepared for that moment. The fact is that it was announced that he was euthanized the morning of his euthanasia and there was no kind of warning that it was coming. That was really striking, and for me it felt abrupt; a flood of emotions went through my brain. It was a lot of memories I had going in the park seeing his tracks, taking my children into the park to look for his tracks and scat, looking at photos from my cameras and bringing family who had never gone into hikes in those parts of the park before P-22, and also leading hikes for kids that are historically underserved and don’t have access to parks, going through the park and talking about P-22 and them getting excited, all these floods of memories kind of kept running through my head all at once and it was definitely overwhelming and got me emotional for sure.”

He had hopes that his 10-year relationship with this magnificent animal would end in a more satisfactory manner, with P-22 able to live out his final days in peace in a sanctuary. He remarked on the irony that P-22 was hit by a car after successfully dodging traffic on both the 101 and 405 freeways to make his way into Griffith Park. “I think it’s just another one of those sad examples of us failing him as a society and failing other wildlife. The fact that he ended up in Griffith Park, even though I loved having him there; he should never have been there. He should have been able to cross north from where he was born into the Simi Hills and Santa Susanas and have a more successful life, have kittens, find a mate and find a large territory of his own without rat poison out there, and all those other barriers you have to deal with.” We build freeways for human needs, “at the expense of countless animals dying on those roads, being isolated and inbreeding with each other and killing each other over space all because we don’t want to wait, and we want to get somewhere faster. I don’t know, it’s just that’s just hard to think about and hard for me to accept. I hope the next generation does better.”

Hopefully, the fascination with P-22 has made us realize what a self-centered species we are. It’s not just about us; we have to think about other beings and how they’re affected by what we’re doing. We’ve shown we’re capable of thinking beyond ourselves, thus the building of the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, and many more to come.

For more information on the work of Miguel Ordeñana and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, go to: nhm.org