Mountain lion found dead on Highway 101 near wildlife crossing construction

A mountain lion was found dead on Highway 101 near Agoura Hills Calabasas early Saturday morning, near where a wildlife crossing is under construction.

The California Highway Patrol received a call about an animal found in one of the freeway’s slow lanes near Liberty Canyon Road at 4:48 a.m., CHP Officer Elizabeth Kravig said. Upon arrival, they found the mountain lion lying in the road, she said.

Kravig said the CHP has no information on how the mountain lion was killed or how he or she got there.

The video shows the animal lying in the right lane of the southbound side of the highway.

“It was heartbreaking,” said Beth Pratt, California Regional Executive Director of the National Wildlife Federation. “I mean, any time we lose a cat … it’s heartbreaking.”

She says repeated cases like this are exactly why wildlife crossings are a must when highways cover so much of what was once open land.

“That’s what happens, unfortunately, every day,” Pratt said. “I think we haven’t considered the moral cost of driving to both wildlife and people.”

It happened near the same freeway exit where an overpass is being built for mountain lions and other wildlife — an effort to stop these animals from being hit and killed as they roam their natural habitat along LA’s freeways. The bridge, called Wildlife crossing at Wallis Annenbergwould connect the mountain ranges on both sides of the 101 and is expected to be completed next year.

With construction set to begin in 2022, the pass is being built where the freeway meets Liberty Canyon Road and has been a joint effort between the California Department of Transportation, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, the Mountain Recreation and Conservation Authority, the National Federation of Wildlife and National Park Service.

“Without safe and sustainable wildlife passage, movement between these remaining areas of natural habitat is severely limited and wildlife within the Santa Monica Mountains is essentially trapped,” reads an online description of pass by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

The highway area where the mountain lion was found is located between the towns of Agoura Hills and Calabasas.