“P-22 is a celebrity but he’s not a success story. He’s also a poster child for what’s going wrong here with mountain lions and in some respects all wildlife,” says Beth Pratt, the California director for the National Wildlife Federation and leader of the #SaveLAsCougars campaign. “LA is known for its infamous freeways. One of...
A viral video of a mountain lion has inspired headlines about the cat “stalking” the runner who recorded it. But that’s not what the clip shows. Beth Pratt has a problem with headlines like those. “‘Stalking’ implies you’re hunting something, right?” she says. “I always say this: If a mountain lion is stalking you to...
A planned wildlife crossing across the 101 Freeway between Agoura Hills and Calabasas, which will eventually be the largest of its kind in the world, is scheduled to break ground in 2021, according to new plans released Wednesday. “This crossing will save the local mountain lion population from extinction, stand as a global model for...
For mountain lions living in Los Angeles—and yes, mountain lions do manage to survive in the second-largest city in the U.S.—the 101 freeway is a major barrier to their daily routines. The same is true for other wildlife. But plans to build a massive wildlife crossing over a 10-lane stretch of the freeway just north...
Growing up, Jonathan Martinez never dreamed about being an artist, let alone one who focuses exclusively on endangered wildlife. But not only is wildlife art how this 29-year-old makes his living, it’s also how the Santa Ana resident — who didn’t see many animals in his childhood — is changing lives. His art definitely is...
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 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...
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...
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.”...
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...
