As a kid, Beth Pratt-Bergstrom watched nature shows like “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” and tasted the salt spray off Cape Cod with her father at the helm of their skiff. So when she came to California to fulfill her dream as a naturalist, she went straight to Yosemite National Park to see bears. And to the...
by Louis Sahagun of the LA Times As 101 Freeway traffic streaked past, a dozen conservationists and fundraisers gathered this week just west of Liberty Canyon Road in Agoura Hills, their eyes alternating between maps they carried and the contours of a canyon where mountain lions hunt and breed. But it wasn’t the big cats...
Photo Credit: National Park Service [Editor’s note: This commentary is prompted by a rancher’s move to kill one of the Santa Monica Mountains’ beleaguered mountain lions after one or more of those lions killed ten alpacas and a goat. As we published this piece, the owner of the unfortunate livestock was reportedly negotiating an alternative,...
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.”...
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...
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...
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,...
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,”...
NWF’s first P-22 Day and Urban Wildlife Week was a huge success! The vibrancy of this initiative is due to our community of partners who have contributed in so many ways. It takes a village—and we have an incredible one. The Los Angeles City Council officially declared October 22 as P-22 Day thanks to Councilmembers...
Photo Credit: Steve Winter – National Geographic This week, the most prominent local mammal wearing a radio tracking collar isn’t P-22, Southern California’s most famous mountain lion, it’s Beth Pratt-Bergstrom. The California director of the National Wildlife Federation is participating in a three-and-a-half day, 50-mile hike that follows the cougar’s journey from the Santa Monica Mountains to Griffith Park....
