An interesting, lengthy cougar story from the Santa Monica Mountains near L.A. appeared the other day in the LA Times (By Amanda Covarrubias)
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is President of the Western Watersheds Project.
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An interesting story, hyped by the ‘hollywood” factor in this area. The real story is that Los Angeles County, which includes several mountain wilderness areas and butts up against the Angeles National Forest, has no shortage of mountain lions. Lion sightings are very common in the northern county which includes cities like Pasadena (the Rose Bowl is adjacent to prime habitat).
Glendale and Burbank (NBC & the Tonight Show) also have substantial populations in their wilderness mountain areas. The 210 Freeway which passes thru Pasadena and Glendale has seen its share of road kills of lions.
Southern California lion populations are growing in spite of this Santa Monica Mountains situation. The problem is that it is politically incorrect to deal with this animal in this area as anything but an “endangered” species. For that reason there is much press attention to this “population decline” in this very limited area.
Thanks for the additional information, Mike.
I could tell this was an interesting story, but I couldn’t think of a single worthwhile comment of my own to add.