LOS ANGELES – A rendezvous caught on video with a celebrity cougar on the prowl in Hollywood might sound like a story line for a TMZ report. Instead, the venerable television news program 60 Minutes featured the “Mountain Lions of L.A,” which aired on Jan. 17, to report on the dwindling number of the animals in the Los Angeles area.
Los Angeles and its suburbs are home to 19 million people – the only megacity in the world where mountain lions, also known as cougars and pumas, live side-by-side with humans. For 13 years, the National Park Service has been studying the animals: opening a window on their mysterious world and raising questions about their survival in the land of freeways and suburban sprawl. They’re the unseen neighbors up the hill. And sometimes, they come to call.
The 60 Minutes report featured various video footage and still shots of wild animals in hillsides and residential communities taken by cameras that are activated by motion detection. You can view the full report in the following installment:
