What happens when one wild animal becomes someone?

P-22 was a mountain lion living in Griffith Park, surrounded by Los Angeles. He crossed two enormous freeways, spent more than a decade in an unusually tiny home range, survived mange and exposure to rat poison, and somehow became one of the most famous wild animals in America.

In this episode, I follow P-22 from the Santa Monica Mountains to the Hollywood sign—and into the much bigger story his life helped people see.

We get into the secret lives of mountain lions, wildlife communication, habitat fragmentation, rodenticides, the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, and what happens when the lines humans draw across a landscape mean absolutely nothing to the animals trying to move through it.

Plus: Grizzly 399, Yellowstone wolf 1090F, a suspected koala incident, a mountain lion on Grandma’s roof, and my six-year-old’s insistence that P-22 looks exactly like our very-not-a-mountain-lion house cat, Bonez Malone.

P-22 — National Park Service

https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/puma-profiles-p-22.htm

P-22 — Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

https://nhm.org/experience-nhm/exhibitions-natural-history-museum/p-22

Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing

https://101wildlifecrossing.org/

The Wild Quiet Companion Guide

Coming soon: photos, maps, wildlife-crossing rabbit—NOPE. 😂 —wildlife-crossing resources, P-22 links, and a few more strange and fascinating things I found while researching this episode.

[ADD COMPANION GUIDE LINK]

Find one place near you where an animal has to navigate something humans built.

A road. A fence. A parking lot. A neighborhood. A culvert. A bridge.

Then look at it from the animal’s side.

Where would you go?

The Wild Quiet is a podcast about nature—and our place in it.

The Wild Quiet Co. on Substack

https://thewildquietco.substack.com

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@thewildquietco

We tend to think of roads as routes to somewhere else. But for wildlife, those same roads can become moving fences—cutting animals off from food, mates, migration routes, and sometimes entire futures.

Environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb joins me to explore the strange and surprisingly emotional world of road ecology: wildlife bridges, salamander tunnels, migrating pronghorn, mountain lions trapped among Los Angeles freeways, road noise as habitat loss, and why the animal always gets the final vote on whether our solution actually works.

We also discuss the tragically underused historical insult flivverboob, which deserves another chance.

ABOUT BEN

Ben Goldfarb is an environmental journalist and the author of Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet.

Ben’s website:

https://www.bengoldfarb.com

Find Crossings:

https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324005896

GO DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

Companion Guide—with wildlife-crossing photos, migration videos, maps, and additional road-ecology curiosities:

https://thewildquietco.substack.com

The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing:

https://101wildlifecrossing.org

ABOUT THE ROADLESS RULE

This episode is being released during the week of National Public Lands Day and while the U.S. Department of Agriculture is considering a proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule. Ben and I recorded our conversation before the proposal was announced, so we do not discuss it directly.

Official proposed rule and public record:

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/20/2026-16965/special-areas-roadless-area-conservation

USDA’s explanation of the proposal:

https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2026/08/18/usda-acts-remove-roadless-rule-restrictions-exacerbate-rising-wildfire-risk

A look at arguments for and against rescission from the University of Wyoming College of Law:

https://www.uwyo.edu/law/centers/center-for-land-and-water-law/blog/long-road-rescinding-roadless-rule.html

National Public Lands Day:

https://www.neefusa.org/npld

LISTENER ASSIGNMENT

The next time you travel a familiar road, look beyond the lane—preferably as the passenger. What does that road divide? Is there water on one side and nesting ground on the other? A game trail ending at the pavement? A culvert or strange green bridge you once ignored?

Who was moving through there before we decided it was the way through?

The Wild Quiet is a podcast about nature—and our place within it.

https://thewildquietco.substack.com

Instagram and Facebook: @thewildquietco

What happens when you plant milkweed for monarchs—and discover an entire tiny world living there?

What started as a few volunteer milkweed plants in my front yard became a miniature neighborhood full of ant farmers, aphid mummies, four-eyed beetles, chemical warfare, disappearing caterpillars, strange pollination tricks, and conversations happening through the stems that I can’t even hear.

In this companion episode, we’re looking past the monarchs to explore some of the other lives tangled up in a milkweed patch—and the surprisingly complicated relationships happening on one ordinary plant.

We get into monarch caterpillars stealing milkweed’s chemical defenses, ants farming aphids, parasitoid wasps growing inside their hosts, red milkweed beetles flirting and fighting through vibrations, insects getting caught in milkweed flowers, and my own inability to remain emotionally detached from a caterpillar once I’ve found it.

Turns out, I planted milkweed for the monarchs.

The drama is what made me keep looking.

GO DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

Companion Guide — Insects, Milkweed & Tiny Dramas:

https://thewildquietco.substack.com/

Photos, research, books, insect art, milkweed residents, and a few more strange things worth getting curious about.

LISTENER ASSIGNMENT

Find one plant you pass all the time—a tree in your yard, a weed growing beside the sidewalk, something in your garden—and give it a few minutes.

Don’t just look at the plant.

Look underneath the leaves. Check the stems. Watch the flowers. Notice what lands, crawls, eats, hides, hunts, or just hangs out there.

How many lives can you find using one plant?

You don’t have to know what any of them are yet. Just notice them.

Then, if something makes you curious, go down the rabbit hole.

The Wild Quiet is a podcast about nature—and our place within it.

https://thewildquietco.substack.com/

Instagram and Facebook: @thewildquietco