These adorable mountain lion kittens are L.A.'s newest stars


Biologists are hopeful that two tiny mountain lion kittens born in the Santa Monica Mountains will be able to shed light on how the animals are able to survive in the sprawling Los Angeles area.
The kittens were born to two different mothers in remote areas, the Los Angeles Times reports, and given the unoriginal names of P-43 and P-44. One is three weeks old, the other is four weeks old, and both have had their health checked, with biologists taking blood and tissue samples and measurements and tagging their ears.
Researchers first began to track mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains in 2002, and since it's Hollywood, P-43 is believed to be the daughter of two famous parents: P-23, who was photographed on top of a deer on Mullholland Drive, and P-12, a male who somehow was able to cross the eight lanes of the 101 freeway in 2009.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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