We need all the wild we can hold.
** News of the world environment
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NEWSLETTER | DECEMBER 16, 2022
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** An Ode to Hollywood's P-22
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Earlier this week, wildlife officials here in Southern California captured an aging celebrity, a 12-year-old mountain lion whom we’ve named P-22 ([link removed]) . The big cat is a much-revered figure in the land of the famous, having survived a delicate cohabitation with humans amid the coastal woodlands of the Hollywood Hills. He was captured because he has turned to predation on Chihuahuas, a sign that he is getting too old and too tired to hunt deer.
This morning, I read that P-22 will not return to the wild. He is underweight, and his coat is thinning, and he has an injury to his right eye, “likely,” the Los Angeles Times reported, “the result of recent vehicular trauma.” He has been treated with antibiotics and will undergo a CT scan, and, depending on health assessments, will either be euthanized and held in captivity. Either way, his run as a wild thing is at an end.
As an environmental journalist, I know that we should not make too much a symbol of what are called charismatic megafauna. But it is hard not to see P-22’s ignoble capture and impending death or imprisonment as symbolic of a greater diminishment. As we humans hurl through the twenty-first century, devouring wild spaces, wiping out birds and bees, parching rivers, and bleaching reefs, news of a specific loss, like that of P-22, hits hard.
The key, I think, is knowing what to do with this kind of gut-punch. We must understand these moments as calls to action, to do better. We must think harder about our relationships to our wild kin, and do what work we can, wherever we can, to keep them. This is how we honor P-22. We should remember him roaming the dark hills of Griffith Park, beyond the city lights, forever free in our collective imagination, which needs all the wild it can hold.
Brian Calvert
Associate Editor, Earth Island Journal
PS: The Journal will be taking a holiday break from December 26 through the New Year. We wish you all a happy and restorative year end.
Photo of Griffith Park, Los Angeles: Boqiang Liao
TOP STORIES ()
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** Peristent Polluters ([link removed])
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Shell Oil is legally required to reduce its emissions by 45 percent from 2019 levels by 2030, yet it wants to continue exploring for oil off South Africa’s ecologically rich Wild Coast.
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** Fixed Fauna ([link removed])
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In Staten Island, New York, wildlife managers have been trying out a unique, and wildly expensive, deer-control effort.
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** Carbon Parks ([link removed])
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In Illinois, forest defenders are pushing for a new kind of national park — one that would place carbon storage above all, while also protecting biodiversity and boosting the local economy.
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ICYMI ()
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** Seeking Systems Change ([link removed])
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The tree-sitters protesting Atlanta's proposed "Cop City" are making the connections between the climate crisis, racism, and the militarization of police. The powers-that-be don’t like that much.
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Photo courtesy of Defend the Atlanta Forest ([link removed])
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** Tell Them No Lies ([link removed])
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Don’t sing your kids lullabies about the challenging future ahead. “If we don’t tell them, they will tell us.” — learned wisdom from writer Mary Annaïse Heglar.
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Photo: Diane Greene Lent ([link removed])
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