Biologist Jeff Stallings cautiously peers around the trail that he and his fellow biologists have walked many times. They carefully search for evidence revealing if any mountain lions recently crossed there. It may be tracks or leftover deer bones from the lion’s last meal but the rogue mountain lions prove to be elusive.
Stallings has worked for the National Park Service for several years helping conserve the natural habitat of the Santa Monica Mountains. The NPS is in charge of preserving resources and wildlife in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Its wildlife research includes the study of amphibians aquatic animals and carnivores. It did not start conducting extensive research on the mountain lion until 2002.
“At first we didn’t know if we had lions within our national park Stallings said. The biologists placed cameras out to get photos and other details.
The [Santa Monica] mountains look like this island of habitat with the 101 freeway to the north 405 to the South and the ocean leaving about 300 square miles of habitat Stalling continued. That’s not large enough to sustain a viable population.” If these lions aren’t getting across the freeway to other habitats they won’t be in the national park in the future.
Wildlife ecologist Seth Riley has worked at the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Park for almost 10 years. We’re here “to learn where they’re going and how they’re surviving in an urban landscape Riley said. We’re trying to understand what the effects of living close to so many people are.”
The biologists attach GPS radio collars to the lions after temporarily capturing them. The most difficult part is finding out where they roam. The field workers set traps for the lions and try to find trails and stream bottoms that the lion’s may use. The biologists’ job in the field requires a lot of hiking as well as checking traps twice a day.
Once a mountain lion is captured it is drugged so that the biologists can take blood and measurements. Then they place the radio collars on them.
The biologists then name the lions according to the order in which they’re captured. All of the individual lions are given P (for puma) and an ID number. The first lion captured was an adult male named P1 the 2nd an adult female P2. Now they have captured and marked 15 lions.
Solitary by nature the cats generally avoid people and are primarily nocturnal limiting their daytime movement to avoid human contact. “They stay out of sight. We barely see them Stallings noted. They prefer natural areas. Freeways are major barriers.”
Only one of the marked lions has braved across the freeway – P12 and the biologists are still monitoring his movement on the other side. A few have ventured near Pepperdine but sightings are rare.
In 1990 California passed Proposition 117 or the California Wildlife Protection Act prohibiting sport hunting of California mountain lions. Questions were immediately raised concerning overpopulation of the lions. However according to lion expert Dr. Maurice Hornocker 2009…mountain lions will never overrun the countryside. These animals are very territorial and limit their own numbers.2009
Contrary to popular belief mountain lions should not be considered dangerous. Rarely do human encounters with mountain lions occur and even so the risk of injury is relatively small. There have only been 21 mountain lion related deaths since 1890.
The biologists also monitor what the mountain lions are eating. “We’ll hike into the areas after they left and identify what they killed Stallings said. Approximately 95 percent of their diet is deer, and the other 5 percent are smaller animals such as rabbits and badgers. [The lions] sit on their kill and feed on it for three and a half days. They’re doing what lions should be doing.
“It’s in our mandate to conserve animals within our park Stallings added.
Urban development serves as the main threat to the mountain lion population, and it can result in the extinction of animal species.
Our ultimate goal is hopefully to make sure that the wildlife (that was originally here) can still exist today Riley stated. Mountain lions need a huge amount of space and they are especially affected by fragmentation. The bottom line is there isn’t space in the Santa Monica Mountains for more than 10 animals.”