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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 past President of the Western Watersheds Project.
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LA is a somewhat unique intensly developed urban area with large corridors of mountianous wilderness both surrounding the metropolitan area and cutting swaths thru it. Bears, mt. lions, deer, coyotes, fox, skunk, racooon are all common within the city along with the bobcats. The few studies that have been done here would indicate that food and water sources are much more prevelent and sustained within the urban area than in the adjacent wilderness, in most cases due to human impacts such as poor household trash management, intentional feeding, countless pools and spas, and pet ownership. LA coyotes and wild cats lounge in manicured estate gardens, drink from cool pristine infinity pools and enjoy their absolute favorite entre’: house cat with Fancy Feast stuffing.
Mike that is a good description of the habitat. Thank goodness there are some wild predators there. . can you imagine what LA would be like if they weren’t there. . rats, mice, nutrias, skunks, raccoons, domestic cats and dogs would wipe out the birds by eating all their eggs and then LA would have a huge insect problem . .and then they would try to control the insects with pesticides and then everything would get sicker. Bleak. Thank heavens for coyotes!!
A pricey neighborhood for most bobcats. I hope they did not take out one of those sub-prime loans!
Linda H.,
I 100% agree with you. Maybe we should inform the state fish and game agencies that allow unlimited slaughters of these animals (coyotes) that they are a part of our native fauna and do much more good then bad.