A strange tale from the Malibu Hills of a male mountain lion, known as Puma-1, studied by biologists, profiled in a National Geographic documentary. If he were human, he’d rate a chapter in Bloodletters and Badmen.

What [biologist Jeff] Sikich heard could give a Malibu real estate agent nightmares. “It was incredibly loud and scary sounding,” says [ecologist Seth] Riley, who listened to the sounds via a cell phone that Sikich held up to the noise. “We thought they were fighting. But one thing about cats is they can also make a racket when they’re mating.” The screams – lord – went on and on. The biologists backed off….

Whether they were or weren’t mating isn’t known, but whatever happened, what came next is all too certain:

On Saturday, they began detecting a “mortality signal” from P-2’s radio collar, meaning that she had not moved for eight hours. The cubs were still close….

Don’t read the the whole article if you’re squeamish. The sad story of Puma-1 was just getting started.