This assignment required me to create an article and go through the publication process, but it was not a requirement to get published. It was required that we chose a topic from a previous work we conducted in our program and generate an article that extends upon that previous work. My manuscript focused on wildfire impacts on mountain lions in the Santa Monica mountain range. This article was sent to the Santa Monica Daily Press, but has not been published.
This was created for my Professional Media Workshop course in Spring 2020.
Photo by Steve Winter
Pumas in the Ash
California has around 3,100 mountain lions (Puma concolor) that inhabit the state. Estimates show that between 5-10 mountain lions live within the Santa Monica Mountains, with two of them being males, which greatly reduces the genetic diversity of this subpopulation. The Santa Monica mountain lions could go extinct within 15 years without immediate help. This subpopulation has the lowest genetic diversity of any mountain lion population ever documented. These mountain lions are trapped on an island of habitat, surrounded by freeways and the Pacific Ocean. Although humans have been impacting wildlife for years, the effects of hotter and larger wildfires are threatening these mountain lions in the Santa Monica mountain lions.
Wildfires occur naturally and help create nutrient-rich soil. However, too much fire can harm plant communities, reduce wildlife habitat and biodiversity, and increase the chance of another fire. Historically wildfires occur every 30 years which allows the native plants, like chaparral, to grow back, but if the landscape burns more than once in a 20-year span, invasive weeds and grasses can establish themselves. Recently, wildfires are occurring every 4-15 years, with climate change being a driving factor to the increase in droughts, fuel build-up, earlier spring seasons and higher temperatures. These hotter, faster, and rapidly recurring fires have massive implications for the various flora and fauna in California, including mountain lions.
On average about 61,375 wildfires occur each year in the United States, leading to 4.6 million acres burned, with about 55% of these fires being human-caused wildfires. In November 2018, the Woolsey fire burned 100,000 acres of land, which made up 88% of the Santa Monica Mountain National Recreation Area alone.
Female mountain lions need about 20 to 60 square miles of habitat, while a male needs about 100 square miles of habitat. In small habitat areas, there can be up to ten adult mountain lions that compete for the same 100 square mile space, which causes issues of dominance and inbreeding. The Santa Monica Mountains make up 239 square miles, which causes territory issues since mountain lions live a solitary life. To complicate matters, mountain lions happen to be opportunistic, stalk and ambush hunters that favor preying on deer. During a fire, they have been known to walk the edge of the burned and unburned area in hopes of capturing a deer fleeing from the flames of a fire. If there is an absence of deer or smaller prey mountain lions cannot eat.
When a wildfire breaks out, Cal Fire is usually the first to respond. They recently made their mascot Captain Cal the mountain lion, whose motto is “Safety starts with you”. You can help Captain Cal and other mountain lions by cleaning up dead brush around your home and plant native fire prone plants to protect these animals and yourselves. Like Smokey Bear always says, “Only you can prevent wildfires.”
This work was conducted as a part of graduate work through Project Dragonfly at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and San Diego Zoo Global.
Literature Cited
Boyce, W. (2008). Tracks left in the ashes. Outdoor California, 26–29.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife. (2019). Keep me wild: mountain lion.
Daley, Jason. “Study Shows 84% of Wildfires Caused by Humans.” Smithsonian: Smart
News, Smithsonian Institution, 28 Feb. 2017, www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/study-shows-84-wildfires-caused-humans-180962315/.
Engstrom, R. T. (2010). First-order fire effects on animals: Review and recommendations. Fire
Ecology,6(1), 115-130. doi:10.4996/fireecology.0601115
McGough, M. (2019, June 18). Meet cal fire's new ax-carrying, big-pawed, high-fivin' mascot:
captain cal. Retrieved from https://www.sacbee.com/article231678303.html
Mountain Lion Foundation. (2019). Mountain lions in the state of California. Retrieved from
http://mountainlion.org/us/ca/-ca-habitat.php.
National Park Service. (2019, November 25). Lions in the Santa Monica mountains? Retrieved
National Park Service. (2019, July 18). 2018 Woolsey fire. Retrieved from
Struzik, Edward. (2017). Firestorm: how wildfire will shape our future. Washington DC, District
of Columbia: Island Press.
Williams, J. (2018). Path of the Puma (1st ed.). Patagonia.
Winter, S. (n.d.). Ghost Cats: Hollywood . photograph, Los Angeles.
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