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Mountain lion spotted at the Getty Center

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There’s a new work of art (of sorts) at the Getty Center. The Associated Press reports:

The world-famous Getty Center and its art museum have had an unusual visitor — a mountain lion. The predator was spotted at night on Oct. 13 and again before dawn on Oct. 18. It was seen in a woody area near a hilltop shuttle bus turnaround used by employees, spokeswoman Julie Jaskol said Thursday. Employees described it as “the size of a large dog, 65 or 70 pounds,” she said. The mountain lion may have been hunting deer, which are common in the woody canyons of the Santa Monica Mountains surrounding the center overlooking West Los Angeles, Jaskol said. The area is not open to the public and the mountain lion was not considered a serious threat but “we take prudent precautions” regarding all wildlife, Jaskol said. The shuttle stopped using the turnaround area and dropped off workers elsewhere but there have been no more sightings and it was expected to reopen sometime this week, Jaskol said. According to state game officials, “mountain lions have a range of hundreds of miles and they don’t stay in one place for very long,” Jaskol said. “They are loath to meet up with humans.” Getty workers are used to seeing all kinds of critters in the area, including skunks, raccoons and foxes. Still, “I don’t think most of us see mountain lions,” she said. “I think everybody has seen coyotes.”

The Getty Center is on the eastern edge of a 20,000-acre preservation area dubbed “the Big Wild” that is the known home of just three mountains lions at any given time — a female, a juvenile and a “big male” that roams the whole area up to the Ventura County border defending his territory, said Paul Edelman, deputy director of natural resources and planning for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. However, mountain lion sightings are common in the Mandeville Canyon area near the museum and there may be some in the area that have not been tracked, Edelman said. Judging by its weight, the mountain lion that was spotted may have been a juvenile, Edelman said. “There may be more than we think, and I’ve always been a proponent of that,” Edelman said. “There might be microterritories, pushed out on the margins, where juveniles and adolescents hang out.” That might indicate there have been litters of cubs that the experts haven’t discovered, Edelman said. If that’s the case, there’s a mystery to be solved, Edelman said: “Who’s the mother?”

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