A mountain lion on Candid Camera?

You never know what’s doin’ in the nooks and crannies of Griffith Park!

I found out about some of these doings when I was allowed to attend (my) first meeting of the Griffith Park Natural History Survey, led by George Grace of the Franklin Hills Residents Association. This was a fairly small meeting with only 10 people or so, and we made a good start. (I would have known that small meetings are more efficient, IF ONLY I HAD GONE CORPORATE.) Smart man, he started this a couple of months before the fire, and hired a real! ecologist, Daniel S. Cooper, who made a beginning list of birds and butterflies in the park, as well as making contacts with other park patrons who had spotted wildlife, and who wanted to contribute numbers. He’ll be starting a website, including a map database, for identification of local species.

I wondered who the 2 kids were at the meeting, and it turns out they were hired to find the big animals! Okay, college kids. But they both have scientific backgrounds, and had several ways to monitor tracks and trails of various animals. Here’s where it got really fun: apparently the park started a hidden Candid Camera for animals deep in the forest, when there were reports of a single mountain lion in the area. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Nor did they ever find any sign of one.) These photos were taken a couple of years ago. I don’t know how many photos there were, but would anyone like to see more?

photo by LA Parks. Say cheese.

photo by LA Parks. Mule deer like the golf course at night.

photo by LA Parks. I’m pretty sure these are bobcats! Run, kitties, run.

Then we got to the part of the meeting where it wasn’t so much fun.

One of the participants said that he had found that erosion was the biggest problem facing anyone in the park now, which all the specialists had predicted as a result of the trees that had turned to ash on my car. But the biggest culprit, he said, was LA’s own park tractors, which were removing debris; they left huge holes, loose dirt and swathes behind them. If you had thought I was going to trek up there to see the destruction, you’d be mistaken, but others did. Greg Randall said that a couple of days after the fire he was trying to capture a coyote whose paws had been burned, and was so wounded he could hardly move, to give him some much needed first aid. Normally, this would have been easy for the experienced handler, but he said the dirt up there was so loose and so unstable, that he sank into it, to the tops of his boots, and the coyote was able to stumble away.

Then Chief Ranger Albert Torres mentioned that one reason they needed all the trucks and tractors was because they were CONTINUING to cut down trees, in spite of the many thousands that had already burned. In fact, they had already cut down 900 more trees. Just in case. Living trees. I had heard the rumor, but hadn’t believed it. I asked him why they would be doing this, and he said “Let’s discuss this outside of the meeting.” Like, uh, trees aren’t part of the park? No, let me stay positive: meaning, of course, that I was right to bring up this point, and he appreciated my insight. (more about this in another post.)

Later on, the ecologist gave us a list of birds that he needed some feedback on. He wondered if anyone in Hollywood Hills or Bel-Air had seen these birds nesting or summering:

• American Kestrel
• Barn Owl
• Western Screech-Owl
• Costa’s Hummingbird
• Greater Roadrunner
• Common Poorwill
• Downy Woodpecker
• Say’s Phoebe
• Lazuli Bunting
• Dark-eyed Junco
• American Goldfinch

I live about a mile from the park, and one day about 3 years ago I saw a Roadrunner in the middle of my apartment complex! I was so excited and flabbergasted, because I never did see any of them though on several trips to Tucson AZ, a much more likely place to spot them… And I mentioned this to one of my neighbors, who is a biologist, and he said he had seen several that year in the mountains near Burbank.

So you never know.

Coming up soon: My councilman screamed at me!!!