Editorial: We can give mountain lion kittens an easier life than P-22 had
The three feminine mountain lion kittens born little greater than a month in the past within the Simi Hills had been wholesome and feisty after they had been found tucked away in a den on Might 18.
The kittens hissed at Nationwide Park Service biologists, who captured them on video. The biologists discovered them close to Simi Valley in a dense patch of poison oak — which doesn’t have an effect on mountain lions the best way it does folks — whereas their mom was away looking, feeding or resting. The researchers checked their well being, affixed a tiny ear tag to every kitten and bestowed upon them the numbered handles — P-113, P-114 and P-115 — that mark them as the latest entrants into the park service’s 21-year examine of pumas in and across the Santa Monica Mountains.
Inside days of discovery, their mother, P-77, had moved the kittens to a brand new location. In a few months, says biologist Seth Riley of the park service, the kittens will go away the den and journey together with her as she kills prey and feeds herself and her brood. When the lions are older, park service researchers will attempt to monitor them down and put GPS radio collars on them.
Quickly sufficient, they may face the perils of the city wilderness into which they had been born: rushing automobiles on freeways and different roads, rat poison, a dwindling variety of lions with which to mate, and the consequences of inbreeding that comes with being caught in a single space. That’s presuming they survive kittenhood. When 4 kitten litter mates had been discovered beneath a picnic desk close to an workplace advanced in Thousand Oaks, underfed and chirping for his or her absent mom in 2021, scientists finally took them to a veterinarian. The kittens dubbed P-100 and P-102 died shortly after. The survivors, P-101 and P-103, had been taken to the Orange County Zoo for care.
Solely the people who share this mixture of city and wild land with these superb creatures could make it simpler for them to outlive. A examine launched this 12 months confirmed that 500 mountain lions have been killed on California roads within the final eight years. The beloved P-22 of Griffith Park could not have died on a street, however in some unspecified time in the future earlier than his dying final 12 months, he had ventured into close by neighborhoods and was in all probability hit by a automotive, sustaining accidents that contributed to such a steep decline in well being that officers determined he must be euthanized.
Southern California’s mountain lions could also be declared threatened or endangered by the top of this 12 months. One of many methods we may help them and different animals survive are with extra locations to soundly cross the treacherous roads and freeways. Wouldn’t it’s nice if the state-of-the-art $87-million Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing beneath building on the 101 Freeway close to Liberty Canyon had been completed by the point that P-77’s kittens are able to roam for mates?
Not each crossing must be that spectacular. Riley, the biologist, mentioned the Corriganville Tunnel, a path beneath busy Freeway 118 utilized by hikers and equestrians, could possibly be made extra engaging to mountain lions that hardly ever use it now. That may be a secure method for lions to journey between the Simi Hills and the Santa Susana Mountains in quest of new territory and mates. Riley mentioned this could possibly be completed by placing up fencing and including landscaping that acts as cowl for lions — options that may draw them to the tunnel and discourage them from making a run for it throughout the freeway.
California nonetheless wants to higher regulate the usage of poisonous anticoagulant rodenticides. Mountain lions and different predators are severely sickened or killed after they ingest a smaller animal that was killed by the rat poison. The state has a moratorium on the usage of second-generation anticoagulants (with some exceptions for agricultural operations and public well being emergencies). California Meeting Invoice 1322, sponsored by the Middle for Organic Range and the animal welfare group Raptors Are the Answer, would put an identical moratorium on diphacinone, a first-generation anticoagulant that has regularly been detected within the techniques of untamed animals that weren’t focused, akin to raptors, mountain lions and bobcats. The invoice handed the Meeting on Tuesday. The state Senate ought to go it as effectively.
If we wish to enable mountain lions to stay amongst us, we should make California safer for them. If we try this, perhaps P-113, P-114 and P-115 can stay to mate and provides beginning to their very own litters of kittens.
