Chia Collins
Staff Writer
There’s a new cat in town … well, actually there are four.
Amid fear that the puma population in the Santa Monica Mountain Range would become extinct, the last known male and female mountain lions, known as P-1 and P-2, have mated.
The only adult pumas recorded in the Santa Monica Mountains became parents, in late August 2004, to two female and two male cubs. Four months have passed since their birth, and all of the cubs have survived.
Researchers had awaited their arrival since they first discovered their parents in 2002.
With the wish of offspring granted, researchers say they now hope the cubs will continue to thrive.
“We were concerned that the lions in Santa Monica may disappear in a few years,” said Dr. Russell Gough, a Pepperdine environmental ethics professor.
P-1 and P-2 have been part of a tracking program that allows scientists to monitor their activities.
The program was designed to assess the effects of urbanization on mountain lions.
I 2002, researchers implanted tracking devices in both cats to study their means of survival. Because their territory is limited by an increase in development, scientists intended to monitor their every move, hoping that people don’t interfere.
The same concern extends to the baby pumas. Last year, a young male mountain lion was struck and killed by a car in Malibu.
Because of a puma’s lack of the ability to understand the potential danger of a car, they are at a high risk for sustaining an accidental death.
“Biologists won’t be surprised if one or two of the new cubs don’t make it,” Gough said. “Some may die off within the first months or year.”
This is a major concern for researchers because they have limited control over the animals’ safety.
All four cubs have been implanted in the abdomen with transmitters, and researchers intend to track their growth and progress within the coming year.
Another potential problem the new pumas may face is the nature of the male lions to dominate their environment. P-1, the adult male puma, is the king of the mountain range and will not tolerate other males to linger in his territory.
The father may even harm his young to get them off his turf.
“The male cubs will have to go elsewhere,” Gough said. “The Santa Monica Mountain range is just large enough for one male mountain lion. The father could kill them.”
Gough added that “males need roughly between 100 to 200 square miles” to call their own, about the size of the land west of Highway 101.
Thus the male pumas will have the life-threatening job of finding their way across the freeway.
There is a wildlife corridor created for this purpose, a tunnel near the Liberty Canyon exit.
However, it is unknown whether a mountain lion has ever used it.
The cubs are expected to remain with their mother for up to two years.
The new births give hope that P-1 will have a successor. After the cubs leave, they will potentially create their own lives and hopefully start their own families.
It is likely that P-1 and P-2 will mate again in the future, but for now the survival of the new cubs is researchers’ top priority.
“They are more active,” said Seth Riley, wildlife ecologist of the Santa Monica Mountains National Park.
“They are moving around with their mom more — she makes killings and brings the cubs to the food.”
As the pumas are expected to remain with their mom for about one year, their ability to adapt to their surroundings at a young age will be crucial to their survival in the future.
01-13-2005