By ROBERT JABLON, Associated Press
Thursday, January 9, 2014
FILE - In this undated file photo provided by the California
Department of Fish and Game shows a mountain lion. While mountain lion
populations are healthy across California, the situation is becoming
increasingly dire for the isolated population in the Santa Monica
Mountains. Lions need as many as 100 square mile territories but the
estimated 10 cats in this mountain range are hemmed in by freeways and
other development and without a way to link to the greater population,
biologists say the Santa Monica Mountain lions will go extinct. DNA
tests indicate that mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains are
inbreeding, another sign of the challenges facing the species struggling
to survive in the midst of one of the nation's most densely populated
urban regions.
Photo: Anonymous, AP
In this Nov. 20, 2013 photo provided by the National Park Service
shows a Mountain Lion kitten born in the Santa Monica Mountains National
Recreation Area (SMMNRA). The SMMNRA is the largest urban national park
in the country, encompassing more than 150,000 acres of mountains and
coastline in Ventura and Los Angeles counties. It comprises a seamless
network of local, state and federal parks interwoven with private lands
and communities. Three mountain lion kittens born last Dec. 2013, in the
Santa Monica Mountains were inbred, a wildlife expert said, a troubling
sign for a population penned in by a major Southern California freeway
and surrounded by urban sprawl. ( AP Photo/National Park Service)
Photo: AP
FILE - This undated image provided by the National Park Service shows
a mountain lion, called P-18, captured by a remote camera, just after
becoming independent from his mother and who was later killed trying to
cross a highway near the Santa Monica Mountains in southern California.
Biologists who have spent a decade studying the lions living in the
Santa Monica Mountains say the cat was simply searching for a home.
While mountain lion populations are healthy across the state, the
situation is becoming increasingly dire for the isolated population in
the Santa Monica Mountains. DNA tests indicate that mountain lions in
the Santa Monica Mountains are inbreeding _ another sign of the
challenges facing the species struggling to survive in the midst of one
of the nation's most densely populated urban regions.
Photo: Anonymous, AP
LOS
ANGELES (AP) — Three mountain lion kittens born last month in the Santa
Monica Mountains were inbred, a wildlife expert said, marking a
troubling sign for a population penned in by the urban sprawl of
metropolitan Los Angeles. Preliminary
DNA tests indicate that the male and two females born in the Malibu
Springs area were sired by an adult male and his daughter, the Santa
Monica Mountains National Recreation Area announced Thursday.
The mother was tracked by a radio collar as part of a decade-long study of the local puma population, and the 3- to 4-week-old kittens were given ear tags, said Seth Riley, an urban wildlife expert with the recreation area, which is a unit of the National Park Service. Two other kittens born in 2012 were produced by the same mother and father, he said.
Over the years, researchers have found seven mountain lions that were the products of inbreeding, Riley said. Riley says the kittens were healthy but there's concern that without new blood, eventually inbreeding could cause physical defects, such as heart problems and sterility.
The lions live in a patchwork of local, state and federal parkland that stretches westward from Los Angeles into Ventura County. About a dozen pumas roam the area, but it's a tight squeeze when adult male pumas typically each have huge territories, Riley said.
The area is surrounded by densely populated areas and is bounded by such major highways as U.S. 101, which is heavily developed along most of its length."There's almost no place left where there's natural habitat (along the route) ... it's just a huge barrier for all animals," Riley said.
Young male mountain lions that typically would seek their own territories have been unable to leave and have been killed by an older male, Riley said. "Their movements are totally circumscribed by the freeway," he said, noting that one young male was struck and killed by a car in October. The animal crossed eight lanes of roadway but couldn't jump a 10-foot-high retaining wall topped with chain-link fencing. "That makes this inbreeding more likely than it might otherwise be because the young animals can't get elsewhere," he said.
In addition, other animals cannot easily move into the area from Los Padres National Forest and other neighboring wilderness areas, contributing to low genetic diversity, Riley said. Research on the local puma population "shows that conflict with other lions, rodenticide poisoning and vehicle collisions are the top causes of death among more than 30 lions studied," the recreation area statement said.
The recreation area, state parks, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, the California Department of Transportation and others have long sought about $10 million in funding to create a wildlife corridor in the Agoura Hills area — essentially, a tunnel that would allow the mountain lions and other animals to cross under U.S. 101.
There are plenty of mountain lions in California, but Riley said he thinks it's "amazingly cool" that a population still survives in the Santa Monica Mountains, in the midst of the urban sprawl.
It would be a shame if they disappeared, he said. "It would be an ecological loss and even a cultural loss," Riley said. "These wild places that we spend millions of dollars to preserve — they would be a bit less wild."
source
The mother was tracked by a radio collar as part of a decade-long study of the local puma population, and the 3- to 4-week-old kittens were given ear tags, said Seth Riley, an urban wildlife expert with the recreation area, which is a unit of the National Park Service. Two other kittens born in 2012 were produced by the same mother and father, he said.
Over the years, researchers have found seven mountain lions that were the products of inbreeding, Riley said. Riley says the kittens were healthy but there's concern that without new blood, eventually inbreeding could cause physical defects, such as heart problems and sterility.
The lions live in a patchwork of local, state and federal parkland that stretches westward from Los Angeles into Ventura County. About a dozen pumas roam the area, but it's a tight squeeze when adult male pumas typically each have huge territories, Riley said.
The area is surrounded by densely populated areas and is bounded by such major highways as U.S. 101, which is heavily developed along most of its length."There's almost no place left where there's natural habitat (along the route) ... it's just a huge barrier for all animals," Riley said.
Young male mountain lions that typically would seek their own territories have been unable to leave and have been killed by an older male, Riley said. "Their movements are totally circumscribed by the freeway," he said, noting that one young male was struck and killed by a car in October. The animal crossed eight lanes of roadway but couldn't jump a 10-foot-high retaining wall topped with chain-link fencing. "That makes this inbreeding more likely than it might otherwise be because the young animals can't get elsewhere," he said.
In addition, other animals cannot easily move into the area from Los Padres National Forest and other neighboring wilderness areas, contributing to low genetic diversity, Riley said. Research on the local puma population "shows that conflict with other lions, rodenticide poisoning and vehicle collisions are the top causes of death among more than 30 lions studied," the recreation area statement said.
The recreation area, state parks, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, the California Department of Transportation and others have long sought about $10 million in funding to create a wildlife corridor in the Agoura Hills area — essentially, a tunnel that would allow the mountain lions and other animals to cross under U.S. 101.
There are plenty of mountain lions in California, but Riley said he thinks it's "amazingly cool" that a population still survives in the Santa Monica Mountains, in the midst of the urban sprawl.
It would be a shame if they disappeared, he said. "It would be an ecological loss and even a cultural loss," Riley said. "These wild places that we spend millions of dollars to preserve — they would be a bit less wild."
source
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