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Famed Mountain Lion Seeks Comfort Under An LA Home

The mountain lion known as P-22 seen in Los Angeles' Griffith Park in November 2014. He is now hiding out in the crawl space of a Los Angeles home.
National Park Service AP
The mountain lion known as P-22 seen in Los Angeles' Griffith Park in November 2014. He is now hiding out in the crawl space of a Los Angeles home.

We've told you about P-22 in the past. He's the mountain lion who lives in Los Angeles' Griffith Park with his own Facebook fan page and at least two Twitter accounts. Well, P-22 spent Monday night under a local home — and stayed put despite attempts to dislodge him.

The Los Angeles Times has more:

"The cougar had padded out of the woods of Griffith Park sometime after midnight and taken refuge in the dark, shallow space under the contemporary, white-walled home of Jason and Paula Archinaco. "By midday, two workers installing a security system as part of a home renovation climbed into the crawl space. One worker quickly came uncomfortably close — eyeball-to-eyeball close — with the cat. "The workers quickly ran upstairs to alert the owners, who called the city, which then contacted the state."

They tried a host of methods to lure P-22 out of the crawl space: a tennis ball launcher, prodding him with a long pole, even shooting him with bean bags. Nothing worked. At 10 p.m. local time, officials from the Fish and Wildlife said they'd let P-22, who was fitted with the GPS collar about three years ago, leave on his own.

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P-22, if you remember, was made famous by a photograph of him in front of the Hollywood sign that was taken in 2013 by a National Geographic photographer. Last year, the mountain lion recovered from eating rat poison and from mange. He now appears healthy.

"I don't think he's going to come out," homeowner Jason Archinaco said, according to The Associated Press. "He's probably been living here for a while. ... He thinks this is his den."

Archinaco said he and his wife already have three cats and were considering getting a fourth — "but not this way."

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