The wildlife tunnel under Highway 17 through the Santa Cruz Mountains got a new, much-awaited visitor last month: a puma.

The crossing, which was completed in January after several months of construction and 15 years of research from the Santa Cruz Puma Project, is located at Laurel Curve, per the Mercury News and  KSBW. It’s a joint project by UC Santa Cruz, Land Trust of Santa Cruz County and the California Department of Transportation.

Video surveillance has reportedly been capturing footage of all the animals using the linkage since, and several species love it: skunks, squirrels, bobcats, deer, coyotes, and foxes. But this is apparently the first mountain lion using it, 10 months after the opening.

The Land Trust put the footage up on YouTube, and you can watch it here:

Land Trust staff reviewed the footage and saw the mountain lion earlier this month, as Mercury News reported. He's an untagged male traveling through the tunnel around 2:30 a.m. on November 28.

The Land Trust’s executive director, Sarah Newkirk, told Mercury News that the goal of the linkage is to “promote biodiversity by connecting different groups of species with each other” and avoid wildlife-car accidents, which frequently occurred when they tried to cross busy Highway 17. Four mountain lion collisions were reported in the past decade. Plus, she said that mountain lion groups that couldn’t cross the highway had started inbreeding.

The Land Trust had reportedly bought the land where the crossing is in 2014, and purchased 790 acres over time around the highway, and a local measure was passed around the time to support the construction.

The lead researcher for the Puma Project, Chris Wilmers, said there are approximately 50 mountain lions in Santa Cruz, per the Santa Cruz Lookout, a small proportion of the approximately 4,500 mountain lions in the state. CDFW also classifies the species as 'specially protected' in California, and they might soon be listed as endangered.

Feature image via the Land Trust of Santa Cruz.