Photo Credit: National Park Service Hollywood would be hard-pressed to conjure up such a misunderstood beast. There are about a dozen pumas (Puma concolor) living in the Santa Monica mountain range, which bisects Los Angeles. These big cats are stuck on an island of habitat, trapped on all sides by freeways on which hundreds of...
Author: Sammy (Sammy )
THE STORY OF P-22
The Wall Street Journal | Wildlife Crossings Get a Whole New Look
Photo Credit: Jeff Burrell – Wildlife Conservation Society Why did the black bear cross the road? Actually, it didn’t—because it didn’t have to. A motion-activated camera shows that the bear in question took an overpass—essentially a large, camouflaged arch—that gracefully carves over U.S. Highway 93 in Montana, just north of the town of Evaro at the...
The New Yorker | Lions of Los Angeles
Photo Credit: National Park Service It was drizzling and gray, late fall, on the old Rickards Movie Ranch, high in the Santa Monica Mountains, in rural, red-state western Malibu. Bleached skulls were tacked to the outside wall of a stage-set saloon; rusting wagon wheels leaned at angles. A hand-painted sign announced a “Public Hanging, 5PM.”...
VIDEO | P-22 Makes His Movie Debut!
The Cat That Changed America, directed and produced by Tony Lee, is making its world premiere at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival! The film tells the story of P-22–and the quest to build the wildlife crossing at Liberty Canyon–and has a cast that includes many #SaveLACougars team members! Showtimes, followed by a Q&A, are as...
DW | LA Lions to Roam Over Freeway
Photo Credit: National Park Service Planning has started on the largest wildlife crossing in the world. The privately-funded bridge would allow the endangered Santa Monica mountain lion and other species to dodge safely the insanity of LA traffic. The Ventura Freeway, known to locals as the 101, is a relentlessly busy east-west road that carries...
P-45 spared! But threats remain…
We made a difference! Last week, the community worked together and helped build a low-cost, effective livestock enclosure for the local rancher whose alpaca were likely killed by P-45 as an alternative to acting on the depredation permit, which ended the imminent threat to P-45’s life. As one of the few males in the region,...
Another Mountain Lion Lost to the roads: RIP P-39
P-39 roamed the Santa Susana Mountains, and had given birth to her second known litter of kittens this spring, with the presumed father being P-38. But her life tragically ended recently when she was struck by a car on the 118. “Navigating our complex road network is a major challenge for mountain lions in this region,”...