Mountain Lion Cub shows promising recovery after being seriously injured in the County of Orange – San Diego Union -Tribune

A mountain lion left with a fracture of the skull and a serious trauma of the head and eyes after being hit by a car in the County of Orange at the beginning of this year, he made a strong recovery and could soon return to the wild, announced the San Diego Humane Society on Saturday 5 April.

The male cub was about four months when it was found on the side of a County Orange road around January 10. The location was not available on Sunday.

It was treated by the Serrano Animal & Bird Hospital in Lake Forest, then transferred a few days later to the center of the fauna of the San Diego Humane Society in Ramona for specialized rehabilitation care.

The 13 -acres center is one of the two installations in California equipped with appropriate medical tools and speakers to rehabilitate mountain lions.

The organization said that the young Cub had undergone intensive treatment, including nutritional support and pain management, after having been fractured in the skull, as well as a head and eye trauma, and shown to be lame in its left rear paw.

He has not undergone any surgical intervention because his injuries healed well when he was examined in late January, officials said.

After improving its condition, the CUB went to an outdoor enclosure where it could regain its strength safely while minimizing human interaction.

The region is in an isolated part of the campus where human noise can be minimized, said Angela Hernandez-Cusick, fauna rehabilitation supervisor with Project Wildlife, a Humane Society program. The external shade and temporary walls also provide a visual barrier and limit the number of times the CUB sees the staff.

Human interaction is also limited during food, and staff members do not interact directly with the mountain lion.

Instead, the animal is powered by a central divider in the enclosure, which can be closed or open on one side.

The CUB is nourished every few days instead of daily, to prepare it for the type of “wild diet” that he would meet as a hunter once he is released.

Its diet consists of proteins to which it would normally be exposed in the wild, in particular quail, rabbits, rats and venison, said Hernandez-Cusick.

Now – 80 days later – the CUB began to present natural survival behaviors, including hunting for food and avoiding the presence of humans. He will be envisaged for liberation in the wild once he has gained weight and staff members have made it capable of hunting and fending in the long term.

The Mountain Lion weighed 44 pounds when the center received it for the first time and is now about 50 to 60 pounds.

“The mountain lions are affected by cars quite often, unfortunately, due to the fragmentation of the habitat,” said Hernandez-Cusick.

A 2023 UC Davis Road Ecology Center report revealed one to two mountain lions died on California State motorways each week from 2015 to 2022.

Deaths involving vehicle collisions would be under-declared and considered a threat to mountain lions populations in southern California. While the threat of local extinction continued to increase, the researchers identified other local highways as particularly dangerous for mountain lions, notably Ortega Highway in the counties of Orange and Riverside and the 241 Toll Road in the County of Orange.

Originally published: April 6, 2025 at 2:23 p.m.