The story comes from KCLU’s podcast The One Oh One. You can listen to the full episode here.
For this trip into the Santa Monica Mountains you’ll have two guides. Two National Park Service experts with 20 years of experience studying the mountain lions and animals of our region. I’ll introduce you to them in a moment, but first I want you to imagine what the mountains were like a century ago.
100 years ago the mountain lions or pumas or cougars (whichever name you prefer to use – all work) of the Santa Monica Mountains essentially roamed free.
There were no highways, commercial agricultural fields or suburbia locking them into one area.
“In the past, animals, including mountain lions, would have just been able to go wherever basically they wanted,” said Seth Riley.
Riley (guide number one) is a wildlife ecologist at Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. He oversees all the wildlife programs at the park and is also an adjunct professor at UCLA.
“A hundred years ago these mountain ranges were all connected. We didn't have freeways and development, so it wasn't as fragmented as it is now,” said Jeff Sikich.
Sikich (guide number two) is a biologist also with the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. He does a lot of field work: hiking, scouting and collaring and tracking many of the animals in the Santa Monicas.
Yes, there are definitely huge parts of the Santa Monicas that are preserved and kept wild – 300 square miles in fact of coastline and mountains – but it is today very much an urban park – a fragmented landscape.
“So in some ways, you go out there and it might not be all that different from how it might have looked depending on where you go,” said Riley. “But then you go a little further north and you hit the freeway or you go a little farther east and you hit much more developed areas in Los Angeles, or you go a little further west and you hit the intensive agricultural areas in the Oxnard plain.”
And Sikich points out, back in the day, they weren’t alone.
“Mountain lions had competing large carnivores as well. So there used to be grizzly bears in the Santa Monica Mountains and gray wolves used to roam around here,” said Sikich. “So as it stands today, the mountain lion is our last remaining large carnivore in the Santa Monica mountains.”
Remember large carnivores were, at one stage, hunted. Grizzly bears, the animal that appears on the California flag, were hunted to local extinction about a century ago and were last seen in the Santa Monicas around the late 1800s, according to the National Park Service
Gray wolves had been wiped out of the state by the 1920s but slowly they are coming back in Northern California. But they are rare and are listed as endangered.
So the mountain lions’ ability to roam free has changed drastically but so has something else – the human-wild animal relationship – it’s more about tolerance and even love today.
“The education that us and also many other organizations have done in the area have really, you know, dampened a lot of those fears of ‘Oh what's the lion going to do in my backyard. Is it safe to go out hiking?’ ” said Sikich.
You just have to look at how P-22, the famous mountain lion that lived in Griffith Park for many years, was adored by the public to see how times have changed.
A bit of a housekeeping note: The ‘P’ at the beginning of the name stands for ‘puma’ and the number represents in what order they got their tracking collar.
When P-22 was euthanized in December last year there was a memorial service held at the Greek Theatre that thousands attended. The celebrity puma was laid to rest in a private tribal ceremony.
Next, with help from guides Seth Riley and Jeff Sikich, I want to make three relatively unknown mountain lions or pumas famous – none can be as famous as P-22, but I can try.
Because what we learn from their lives and unfortunate deaths may paint a picture of how to help.
P-23: the mother
We start our character study with P-23 – ‘the mother’.
Born in June 2012, P-23 was implanted with a tiny transmitter while she was still in the den. Photos of her show a feisty kitten with fluffy fur, bright blue eyes and tiny teeth.
Jeff Sikich finds these dens and is present when transmitters are put in.
“So we were able to track her at a young age, going out there with our receiver and antenna. And so we followed her practically her whole life,” said Sikich.
P-23 was a product of first-order inbreeding which is when a father mountain lion mates with his female offspring.
Inbreeding has been documented numerous times in the Santa Monica mountain lions.
Why does inbreeding happen? Well highways, farmland and suburbia are keeping lions trapped in the mountains meaning they’re unable to disperse and are mating with whoever is around… which is often children. This was the case for P-23’s parents.
“So we knew our population for many years in the Santa monica mountains had this very low genetic diversity, some of the lowest ever discovered,” said Sikich.
Cases of fathers mating with daughters, granddaughters and even great granddaughters has been documented. This lack of genetic diversity can lead to abnormalities like only one descended testicle and kinks in tails.
The Florida panthers, who have also experienced widespread inbreeding, have presented other ailments like heart problems and instances where both testicles didn’t drop meaning no reproduction. This hasn’t happened with the Santa Monica mountain lions but it does paint a picture of what can happen with inbreeding in wild cats.
P-23 made the news shortly after she left her mother when she was photographed eating a deer she had killed on the side of Mulholland Drive – which runs through the mountains. This was seen as a particularly rare sighting. In the photos she looks pretty fierce standing over her kill.
She went on to have three litters. The father to two of those litters was her own father and the father to the third was suspected to be a half sibling – more inbreeding.
She had particularly bad luck as a mother with her litters.
“P-23’s first litter was in February of 2015 and we marked two kittens and days later – this was the first time we documented this in our study – an adult male actually came by, and we got remote camera footage of it, he actually killed both kittens and ate them,” said Sikich.
A later litter was preyed upon by another animal (they aren’t sure what kind) with only one surviving kitten.
P-23 was found dead in 2018 after she was hit by a car. Road mortalities are the number one cause of death for mountain lions.
You see, there’s not enough space for all mountain lions that are born in the Santa Monicas – only space for one or two adult males and four to six females. When mountain lions are old enough to disperse from their mothers they try to go off and seek their own new home range – out of the dominant lion's territory.
The lions need to roam, find more space, but they’re often killed as they’re traveling around looking for food or crossing busy highways trying to leave the region entirely.
“We've had very few young animals successfully get somewhere else and establish a home range either in the Santa Monicas or elsewhere,” said Riley. “We can see from their [tracker] points, they seem to be bumping up against the freeway or against the agricultural areas in the Oxnard plain or to the east against 405. And then sometimes they'll try to cross and they'll get killed on the freeway or sometimes they'll end up running into the adult male and they'll fight with them. And then typically they'll be killed.”
P-23 was killed on a secondary road and to make this story even more tragic one of her surviving kittens died in the exact same place years later.
“And in that case, she was pregnant with four basically full term fetuses. So she died. And all of those kittens died,” said Riley.
From March 2022 to March 2023, 12 mountain lions have been killed on our roads. 37 since the National Park Service has been studying these animals.
P-65: ‘The teacher’
Our next character is P-65 – ‘the teacher’.
P-65 was captured and collared in 2018 at around two-years of age. In photos fromthat capture and collaring I can’t help but notice her pink nose and prominently defined eyes – all these mountain lions have what looks like dark eyeliner around their yellowish eyes.
P-65 was able to overcome many obstacles in her life.
Months after she was collared, the Woolsey Fire broke out in the Santa Monica Mountains. The massive blaze burned almost 100,000 acres and forced more than a quarter of a million people to evacuate their homes.
Fortunately P-65 was able to avoid the fire, keeping to the perimeter and likely finding unburned areas of safety – her entire home range was within the burn zone.
Later, in 2019, she did something historic where she became only the second radio-collared female mountain lion to cross the 101 freeway. Biologists think she must have bravely run across the highway as no remote cameras on culverts or underpasses picked her up.
But despite her surviving so much, she died last year of something the National Park Service documented for the first time in two decades of studying these lions.
“She died with notoedric mange,” said Riley.
According to the park service this is a highly contagious skin disease caused by mite parasites. It shows up as hair loss and skin encrustation on the head and face.
“It gets all over the body – they look bad, they kind of wander around more during the day. And even in developed areas we’ve seen,” said Riley.
Which is not common for mountain lions – they usually avoid humans.
“Typically mange is something where the mites might be around and animals might pick them up. But if they're healthy and they have healthy immune systems, they probably don't get sick from it,” said Riley.
But unfortunately these mountain lions aren’t always healthy. Toxicology results revealed that P-65 was exposed to five different anticoagulant rodenticides, or rat poisons.
“There's a very strong correlation between having a certain amount of rodenticide and getting mange,” said Riley.
Rat poisoning causes the blood to stop clotting.
“And so they bleed to death internally. And so you find the animal that's out there laying there,” said Riley.
The park service thinks the lions get it from what they eat – coyotes specifically. And because mountain lions really like eating the organs of their prey, they get big doses of the poison. It’s believed the coyotes get it from infected rodents who get it from traps left out by humans.
And having mange – being this ill – itching and scratching from the mites and crusted over eyes, they aren’t able to hunt and are often found emaciated.
Rat poisoning is a major problem for mountain lions and other carnivores in our region. To date, 41 of the 42 dead mountain lions that’ve been found and tested all tested positive for rat poison. They also found it in four full term fetuses.
“We've had a couple of big healthy adult male mountain lions that just out there keeled over, dead in the middle of the park,” said Riley. “And then when you do a necropsy, they have a bunch of free blood in their body cavity.”
P-64: ‘The trailblazer’
Our last character is P-64 – ‘the trailblazer’.
P-64 first made his presence known when he did something researchers hadn’t seen before.
“We first picked him up on remote camera using a long dark culvert at Liberty Canyon,” said Sikich.
That’s in the Agoura Hills area. Remote cameras had been set up in multiple locations that researchers thought could be potential highway crossings – culverts or underpasses.
“It's exciting to see this uncollared male using this culvert, which was the first time we've heard of it in the course of our study,” said Sikich.
P-64 went on to find numerous spots to cross the major highways in our region. And after the park service were able to capture him and get a radio collar on him, they were able to track and record some incredible data.
“In that nine month period, he crossed freeways 101 and the 118 a total of 40 times,” said Sikich. “He crossed the 101 using that culvert 14 total times going back and forth.”
Why is this so incredible? Well most animals don’t attempt to cross highways – the thousands of cars speeding by are too intimidating. Or as we’ve learned if they try they can get killed by a car.
Underpasses or culverts are also pretty scary. They can be long and dark, and often you can’t see all the way to the end of them.
“So whatever reason he ventured through that long dark culvert, I think it's around 100 meters long, and there's a bend in it. So you can't even see light when you're entering it until you get to that middle part,” said Sikich. “So it's really interesting to see him find a safe way to navigate.”
P-64’s ability to navigate the fragmented landscape of the Santa Monicas, the Santa Susana Mountains and Simi Hills with ease gained him the name ‘Culvert Cat’. When I look at the photos of him coming out of the culverts he looks like a lean, young male with what I imagine a glint of adventure in his eyes.
“So here's an individual that found a safe way to navigate these freeways. So to him, this area was already pretty connected,” said Sikich.
He was the only mountain lion in their study that found a safe way to repeatedly cross highways.
But then came the 2018 Woolsey Fire which was caused by faulty power lines.
The National Park Service had 11 collared mountain lions in the vicinity of the fire when it first broke out. P-64 was one of them.
“As the fire was moving in, it was basically forcing him towards the south and west, towards the developed area. And he had two choices to make: basically, enter the developed area where there's a lot of noise, people evacuating fire trucks or enter this scorched landscape,” said Sikich.
It may seem like an easy choice for a human but it’s not for a mountain lion. They avoid developed areas.
“We know from our long term data, especially these adults, that they are not in these urban areas often. Adult males, less than 1% of the time,” said Sikich.
P-64 did survive the initial fire but days later his collar sent out a signal biologists hoped they wouldn’t receive.
“We had a mortality signal from his radio collar two weeks after the fact. And when we collected his remains, he had burnt paws, was was extremely emaciated. So he wasn't able to hunt,” said Sikich.
P-64 was approximately four-years-old.
Solutions to these unfortunate deaths
These stories are all pretty sad – so now let’s talk about solutions. There are two major ones.
The biggest one is connectivity – if lions can move more freely through the region then they can get away from fires, avoid being hit by cars, decrease inbreeding and escape a dominant male who’s not happy you’re in his territory.
“The crossing, which is already under construction, is really going to help that,” said Riley.
The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing is currently under construction over the 101 Highway in Agoura Hills. Once built it’ll be a bridge about the width of an American football field crossing over 10 lanes of highway. Architects have called it a “green roof on steroids” because it’s been designed to match the surrounding habitat in a way that encourages lions and other animals to use it.
(If you want extra information on the wildlife crossing and how it’ll make the region more connected for animals checkout a previous episode of The One Oh One podcast called ‘The building of the world’s largest animal crossing’.)
There is also hope for other wildlife crossings to be built.
And this is something you can get involved in. The Wallis Annenberg crossing had a lot of private funding from very big and very small donors. It was also something politicians loved to get involved in.
And what can be done about the rat poison?
First let’s understand the problem with the poisons.
As I’ve already mentioned, anticoagulant rodenticides stop normal blood clotting – remember those healthy lions that bleed to death internally.
The next problem is the first and second generation poisons. When rodents became resistant to first generation rat poisons, second generation were created. These poisons were updated to act faster and last longer.
Local groups are advocating to change pesticide use.
“A lot has been done to reduce the use of those poisons,” said Riley. “There's a group called Poison Free Malibu, for example, that has gone to the extent of going to individual stores and talking to them about use of those compounds. To cities and even counties that significantly reduced.”
In 2020, the state authored a bill putting a moratorium on second generation poisons.
Riley says Ventura County has reduced the amount of rodenticides it's using and also the types.
And at a national level, he says the Environmental Protection Agency is also looking at its regulations again now.
But at the ground level, where these scientists are working, they aren’t seeing much change yet.
“So there’s been a lot of progress but I will say we're still seeing them show up in the wildlife. So it hasn't sort of gotten that all the way to where we're not still seeing that exposure,” said Riley.
Solution wise – non-anticoagulant rat poisons have been developed that are supposed to lead to death in a target species after ingestion of just a single dose. But those have also shown up in our mountains lions.
So there isn’t really a “safe” rat poison. The name (poison) gives it away I suppose.
Some have tried the non-poison approach such as raptor perches or planting specific plants that rodents hate – these have seen some success.
Extinction risks
And we need to do all these things if we are to avoid the extinction risks to this mountain lion population.
“From the fact that the population is so small that there is a risk in the long term of loss. I mean, the word you use typically is extirpation because the species is not going extinct. Right. But our population could be lost,” said Riley.
Riley says modeling by a postdoc at UCLA has shown that if there isn’t increased connectivity and increased genetic diversity there could be a grim future in store.
“According to the model, and it is a model, there was basically a 100% chance of extinction within 50 years,” said Riley.
By building more connectivity, that outcome changes. And, by introducing new lions into this population.
“The good news was he [postdoc] was able to look at different scenarios and if you increase immigration into the population, not even that much – one every four years or even every two years – that made a huge difference in terms of the genetics,” said Riley. Then the prospects for long term survival are, I think, pretty good.”
And the prospects are made even better for the future of these carnivores because the open and wild space there is – the habitat has been good for many mountain lions.
So good that some lions have lived way past their expected life span of about 10 years. Like P-19 – the 13-year-old female the National Park Service continues to follow today.
“We marked her as a three week old kitten in 2010. She's had six litters during this time. She lives in the western part of the Santa Monica Mountains and she has survived two fires, the Springs Fire and the Woolsey Fire. And, you know, she's definitely a survivor,” said Sikich.
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