The state’s planned wildlife corridors are a pathway to safety for mountain lions.
By Melonie Magruder / Special to The Malibu Times
For the first time since they have been tracking the lion population in the Santa Monica Mountains, the National Parks Service has detected a tagged mountain lion crossing Highway 101 from the Simi Hills south to the hills above Malibu. It is a feather in the cap of the NPS’ wildlife corridor project.
“This proves the vital need for safe corridors for these animals to expand their hunting grounds,” NPS biologist Jeff Sikich said. “We have lots of evidence of mountain lions roaming around one side of the freeway or the other, so we believe they are looking for safe places to cross the 101.”
Safe passageways, or “linkages,” are important for wildlife in urban settings like Southern California to permit wild animals’ broad territorial exploration and maintain healthy gene pools, according to a landmark conservation report prepared by the conservation planning organization South Coast Wildlands.
Mountain lions in particular require up to 100 square miles to hunt. But man-made obstacles, such as the 101 or 118 freeways, can prove dangerous to animals trying to move into new territory, with one mountain lion being killed by traffic while attempting to cross the 118 last year.
The solution is to provide hospitable habitats for wildlife at freeway underpasses, such as that used by “P-12,” the young, male mountain lion that recently crossed into the Santa Monica Mountains at Liberty Canyon.
The designation “P” means puma and “12” refers to the 12th puma in the NPS study that has been tagged with a radio collar.
“I’ve been tracking this animal since December, when I caught him and tagged him in the Simi Hills,” Sikich said. “One night [two weeks ago], we tracked him by satellite north of Liberty Canyon. A couple of hours later, he was south of the 101. But the approximately 300 square miles of the Santa Monica Mountains are not nearly enough to sustain the current lion population we know of, so they must have corridors to return north.”
In fact, Caltrans has plans in place to build a state-of-the-art corridor at the Liberty Canyon underpass that would protect wildlife from the normal vehicle traffic there. Ron Kosinski, deputy environmental planner for Caltrans, said last year they should begin construction on the corridor in 2011.
Jinous Saleh, senior environmental planner for Caltrans, said this week that, despite recent state budgetary woes, the contract to build a proper wildlife corridor at Liberty Canyon is still valid.
“Our environmental consultant has not yet finished his report and, for each activity we undertake, we have to go through a process for expense authorization,” Saleh said. “We are definitely moving forward on this project and if it works, and it seems with this recent evidence that it is necessary, we will develop more corridors.”
Saleh said Caltrans works with NPS to monitor wildlife activity at possible corridors along Los Angeles County freeways, installing cameras to document wildlife passages. They even monitor at one likely spot under the 405 Freeway near the Skirball Cultural Center.
“It’s amazing that there is so much wildlife in this very urban area of the county,” Saleh said. “But I see deer and coyotes there all the time.”
Local filmmaker Michael Harris is finishing a documentary about mountain lions and their survival challenges in local mountains. He has been working with the NPS to study wildlife habits.
“We want our local mountain lions to take their DNA north and it’s great we now have evidence of this lion traveling from the Simi Hills to the mountains above Malibu,” Harris said.
Pumas, or mountain lions, are notoriously shy and difficult to track. Unlike African lions that travel in prides, mountain lions are solitary and shadowy. To track these creatures, the NPS employs a system of labor-intensive monitoring that includes capturing an animal, collaring it with a radio that transmits signals to a GPS satellite that is downloaded to a computer and activity is checked twice a day.
“Many of the mountain lions that we’ve been tracking since 2002 have been killed,” Sikich said. “One died of anticoagulant poisoning [a common ingredient in rat poison] and some have killed each other. So it is essential that they have a way to move into Simi and the Santa Susana Mountains to ensure a healthy gene pool and a healthy population.”
Harris noted that Native Americans referred to mountain lions as “ghost cats.”
“Even back then, when mountain lions were abundant, they called them that because pumas were so elusive,” Harris said. “If we don’t provide them with protected habitat now, they’ll really become ghost cats.”