A mountain lion who was tracked by scientists in thousands of stunning photos and hours of video was found dead last week in the Verdugo Mountains in California.
The mountain lion known as P-41, was found by residents near Shadow Hills, according to a National Park Services official.
The 10-year-old male had been dead for several days and the carcass was decayed.
The cause of death is unknown and a necropsy will be conducted in the next few weeks by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
However experts speculate it could be due to rat poison or complications from the La Tuna fire, which burned more than 7,000 acres last month.
P-41 was found dead in by residents near Shadow Hills, California
The decayed carcass was found days after death and a nacrospy will be conducted in the coming weeks
The 10-year-old male mountain lion was photographed by amatuer scientists Johanna Turner and Denis Callet
P-41 has been tracked with a GPS collar since 2015
The mountain lion was collared by biologist Jeff Sikich in 2015 and his movements were tracked until this summer when the GPS collar failed.
Sikich said, ‘P-41 had already overcome a number of challenges to survive in a relatively small home range with habitat fragmented by roads and development.’
Amateur scientists Johanna Turner and Denis Callet photographed the 130-pound animal using motion sensored cameras.
Turner told the LA Times that she photographed P-41 thousands of times and has hundreds of hours of video.
She provided the images to the National Park Service for research and some were even featured in a 2015 Times article.
Her last photo of P-41 was taken on August 3.
Turner used motion-sensored cameras to capture more than 1,000 photos of P-41
Turner also said she has hundreds of hours of video of the mountain lion
Though Turner never photographed P-41 in person, she said he would interact through the camera
Turner described her interaction with the mountain lion through the camera though she never saw him in person.
‘If I put a camera in a new spot, sometimes if he wasn’t in the mood to get a flash bulb, he would come up, stop, look around and leave,’ she said. ‘I would get pictures of his butt.’
‘We are grateful to the resident who reported the dead mountain lion,’ said Julianne Taylor, a scientist with the Department of Fish and Wildlife. ‘It’s important to understand the mountain lions’ entire life history, which includes mortalities and cause of death.’
The National Park Service has been studying mountain lions in and around the Santa Monica Mountains since 2002.