The most famous mountain lion in Southern California
"Uno"
The story of Uno
After the unfortunate passing of P-22 in Hollywood, the next most well-known mountain lion in Southern California is Uno. Uno is unique due to her eye injury which only allows for one eye to reflect back towards infrared trail cameras at night. She is also known for being sighted by humans several times due to her close proximity to civilization. She roams the Santa Ana Mountains in Orange County and she is also known to biologists at UC Davis as F312.
Before her injury
It can be difficult to identify individual mountain lions unless they are seen several times on motion activated cameras and distinguishing features can be noticed. Things like scars, notches in the ears, or in Uno's case, an injured eye. This eye injury happened sometime in 2020. She was likely born in 2019 and biologists have some guesses as to who her mother is based on genetic testing they have done and the area that this other mountain lion roams which is in close proximity to Uno's area.
Uno's facts
Uno was likely born in 2019 and has always been pretty thin. Biologists say she's around 120 pounds. She had her first litter of kittens in 2022 but unfortunately none of them made it to adulthood. Her litter of four kittens is a lot of kittens to take care of: two were killed by collisions with vehicles, one showed up in someone's backyard sick and underweight, and the fourth kitten looked like it was going to survive as it was almost the size of Uno at around 6 months old but one day that kitten just disappeared. It's possible that kitten was killed by a male mountain lion.
Uno probably roams somewhere around 30 square miles of the Santa Ana Mountains. There are a couple different males that also roam through her territory and that she has been documented spending time with during mating.