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. 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.

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

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 lions are affected by cars quite often, unfortunately, due to the fragmentation of the habitat,” said Angela Hernandez-Cusick, a fauna rehabilitation supervisor with Project Wildlife.

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 several highways as particularly dangerous for mountain lions, including Ortega Highway in the counties of Orange and Riverside.

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