Lassie has one. So do Kermit and Godzilla. Why can't P-22 have a star in Hollywood?

An advocate for L.A.’s most well-known feline, P-22, is asking why the puma can’t get a star on the Hollywood Stroll of Fame, which has honorees together with Lassie and Rin Tin Tin and fictional characters corresponding to Batman and Godzilla.

“He’s as Hollywood as anybody on that Stroll of Fame,” conservationist Beth Pratt, regional govt director of the Nationwide Wildlife Federation and chief of the Save L.A. Cougars marketing campaign, wrote in a textual content message Monday.

The celebs value cash to put in, greater than $75,000, plus a $250 nomination utility charge, however advocates say they’re assured they may simply elevate the money to honor one among L.A.’s greatest celebrities, who not solely has loads of recognition but in addition has made an actual distinction within the wildlife group. P-22’s story was used as inspiration for constructing the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing in Agoura Hills and has led to laws requiring jurisdictions across the state to create protected passages for wildlife.

Makes an attempt to get P-22 a star have been repeatedly rebuffed as a result of the cougar doesn’t have sufficient display screen credit, mentioned Pratt, although there are 4 documentaries about him — “The Secret Diary of P-22,” “America’s Most Notorious Mountain Lion,” “P22: That Cat That Modified America” and its sequel, “Sturdy Hunter.”

However it isn’t display screen credit per se that make somebody eligible, mentioned Ana Martinez, producer of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce’s Hollywood Stroll of Fame, which has been honoring stars on Hollywood Boulevard since 1958. Martinez has been at her publish for 37 years, and he or she’s seen loads of requests that haven’t made the minimize.

“They need to be entertainers,” she mentioned Monday. “He [P-22] is a wonderful animal, and I want we might do one thing, however he doesn’t qualify. We get a lot of requests — the Aflac duck needed one, however he didn’t get one. They need to be entertainers within the leisure enterprise.”

A fast look on the record of two,793 names on the Stroll of Fame reveals many names much less recognizable than P-22’,s corresponding to longtime Selection columnist Military Archerd and entertainer and impersonator Fred Travalena, in addition to a number of stars that includes the names of characters that don’t exist in actual life, together with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Large Fowl, Kermit the Frog, Shrek, Winnie the Pooh and Woody Woodpecker.

The cartoon characters are included to enchantment to youngsters strolling the route, Martinez mentioned. And once more, she added, they’re all entertainers.

There have been exceptions: The Apollo 11 mission received recognition on the Stroll of Fame in 1973, “with a uniquely designed particular award within the class of Tv as a tribute to the primary televised Stroll on the Moon,” in response to the Stroll of Fame web site. Nevertheless, Martinez emphasised, Apollo 11’s recognition is within the type of spherical plaques in any respect 4 corners of Hollywood and Vine, itemizing the names of the astronauts concerned within the first moon touchdown. “They don’t have Stroll of Fame stars,” she mentioned.

In 2019, Automobile and Driver reported that the Chevrolet Suburban had gotten a star on the boulevard — “the primary inanimate object to be so honored,” in response to the publication, as a result of “Chevy’s largest SUV has been in additional than 1,750 movies, and has made an look in a film yearly since 1960.” However that “star” was only a publicity stunt, Martinez mentioned.

It was by no means really put in on Hollywood Boulevard’s Stroll of Fame. It was on non-public property, she mentioned, and later, Chevrolet took the star on the highway to show at exhibits.

Pratt disagrees with the concept P-22 doesn’t qualify as an entertainer.

“He IS extra Hollywood than any celeb — the Brad Pitt of the cougar world. However did Brad really sleep underneath the Hollywood signal at night time?” Pratt mentioned by way of textual content, referring to a well-known Steve Winter picture of P-22 strolling underneath the Hollywood signal at night time.

That time is definitely debatable, nevertheless it’s exhausting to think about a Hollywood script extra dramatic and poignant than P-22’s life story.

He was born within the Santa Monica Mountains round 2010, and he should have had many lovely moments as a frolicking cub. However issues received darkish when he approached maturity and needed to flee his dwelling to flee dying from an older, stronger and really territorial male — his father, P-1 — whom researchers consider had already killed one among his mates and a minimum of two of his cubs prior to now.

That is the best way for male cougars, extremely territorial creatures that desire a “dwelling vary” of greater than 100 sq. miles for looking and mating. It’s sophisticated in Los Angeles, nevertheless, as a result of these inexperienced areas are crisscrossed with freeways which have led to the deaths of many different cougars that tried to roam.

P-22 received fortunate, nevertheless. The younger tawny cougar with the broad, good-looking options headed east for almost 50 miles to flee his father, wandering by means of no matter inexperienced areas he might discover “and possibly greater than few backyards,” Pratt mentioned.

Researchers consider he adopted the spine of the Santa Monica Mountains, crossing the 405 Freeway after which possible following the slim inexperienced house alongside Mulholland Drive, Pratt mentioned, to the 101 Freeway. Someday in early February 2012, researchers consider he wandered off the Mulholland Scenic Parkway on the Jerome C. Daniel Overlook above the Hollywood Bowl and crossed the 101 to enter Griffith Park within the shadow of the Hollywood signal.

His entry was observed virtually instantly on Feb. 12, 2012, due to cameras arrange by the Mates of Griffith Park to doc wildlife there. “The Mates have been doing a examine with Miguel Ordeñana [of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County], and he was checking the cameras, zipping by means of hundreds of pictures of largely skunks and coyotes after which he was like, ‘Oh, my God. Is {that a} mountain lion?,’” Pratt mentioned final week. “It was like seeing Large Foot in Griffith Park. What a second.”

It wasn’t lengthy after that biologists have been in a position to collar P-22 to trace his actions, and for the subsequent 10 years, he thrilled and generally terrified the group with rare sightings such because the time he determined to hang around underneath the crawl house of a household dwelling in Los Feliz in 2015.

He was handled for a nasty case of mange and different maladies in 2014, however he by no means discovered a mate, so far as scientists might uncover, though Pratt holds out hope that his DNA will flip up in some younger cougar sometime. And he by no means left his tiny (a minimum of for male cougars) territory round Griffith Park, which is simply 6.5 sq. miles. He was mainly trapped by human growth, Pratt mentioned, however there have been loads of deer there attracted by the various human-made “celeb gardens” within the houses across the park. So even when P-22 was unfortunate in love, his stomach was possible full.

Extra essential, although, was the best way P-22 impressed individuals to acknowledge the plight of wildlife minimize off from pure roaming grounds by freeways. His story helped make the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing a actuality, Pratt mentioned. It’s underneath development now in Agoura Hills with a scheduled opening in late 2025 or early 2026.

P-22 was hit by a automobile someday in December 2022, and when docs captured him to test his accidents on Dec. 12, they found he additionally had a number of untreatable well being points, together with second-stage kidney failure, Pratt mentioned. He was euthanized 5 days later, on Dec. 17, 2022, inflicting an ideal outpouring of grief, together with tales, documentaries, songs and festivals to have a good time his life. And his story impressed bipartisan laws to create wildlife corridors across the state, Pratt mentioned.

Greater than 15,000 individuals attended the primary pageant honoring his life final 12 months, and a minimum of 10,000 turned out for this 12 months’s pageant final Saturday, she mentioned. It’s a uncommon Angeleno who doesn’t acknowledge the identify P-22.

Pratt simply accomplished the non-public pilgrimage she’s made for the final 9 years: following the 50-mile route P-22 took to flee his father and settle in Griffith Park.

Along with his monitoring collar and distant cameras out and in of the park, P-22 was virtually as surveilled because the title character in “The Truman Present.” Pratt had at all times longed to identify him within the wild, however she didn’t meet him head to head till the night time earlier than he was euthanized, when she sat exterior his enclosure making an attempt to assuage him with phrases.

“He didn’t need to, however he sat subsequent to me; I might really feel his breath,” she mentioned, “and I instructed him he was a great boy.”

After they couldn’t get him a Stroll of Fame star, Pratt commissioned L.A. artist Corie Mattie to present the puma a “star” in a mural on the facet of a constructing at 6421 Hollywood Blvd., between Cahuenga Boulevard and Wilcox Avenue. The mural was formally unveiled Oct. 16.

The intense yellow, black and white mural features a QR code that permits individuals with smartphones to mission a picture of a star honoring P-22 over a clean Stroll of Fame star in entrance of the constructing. The Nationwide Wildlife Federation can be partnering with the Mates of Griffith Park to create a memorial on the park honoring the puma. (Artists can request particulars by sending an e mail to p22mountainlion@nwf.org by Dec. 31.)

Regardless of all this recognition for P-22, Pratt mentioned she gained’t surrender on getting him his spot on the Stroll of Fame.

“The mural is an incredible tribute, however he deserves a star,” Pratt wrote in a textual content. “You can not over-memorialize P-22. Individuals in L.A. and everywhere in the world have a deep connection to him that didn’t finish together with his dying. And what an exquisite precedent to have a wild animal on the Stroll of Fame to encourage individuals to assist defend the wild world. P-22 is a celeb. And in Hollywood, celebrities by no means die.”