Chapter 13 "Native Wildlife"

Coyotes are by far the most numerous of the large carnivores that continue to live within the city and it is believed that more than 5,000 coyotes roam the City of Los Angeles. Thousands more live throughout the county. Mostly, these animals live in foothills in and around the city. Coyotes are highly intelligent adaptable and possess excellent sensory abilities. Urbanized coyotes can survive on a variety of foods including garbage, feeding by people, food left out for pets and small pets themselves.


By the 1940s, mountain lions were thought to have been eradicated from Los Angeles. Now, naturalists estimate that about a dozen mountain lions live in the mountainous areas of Beverly Hills, Studio City, Tarzana, and Chatsworth. As recently as 2004, a mountain lion was seen prowling Griffith Park, believed to have arrived there via urban water channels. These big cats hunt at night and prey on small game, deer, and, on occasion, unfortunate stray pets. Mountain lions have attacked and, in fact, killed bicyclists, hikers and runners in Southern California. The only verified mountain lion attack (according to the California Department of Fish and Game) on a human in Los Angeles County was a non-fatal attack on a 27-year-old adult male on Mount Lowe in the San Gabriel Mountains in March 1995. Nevertheless, two cyclists were attacked in January 2004 by a mountain lion in a regional park in nearby Orange County, one fatally.


At one time, Grizzly Bears roamed widely throughout Los Angeles County and Southern California. Hunting, however, decimated the numbers of this. In 1916, the last known Grizzly in Southern California was shot and killed in Los Angeles County. Grizzlies, whose image appears on California's state flag, are now extinct in California. By 1933, bears of any sort were already extinct in the mountains of Southern California. That year, in an attempt to reintroduce bears to the Los Angeles area, rangers from Yosemite National Park introduced 11 California Black Bears to the San Gabriel Mountains near Crystal Lake. The Black Bear is a smaller and much less aggressive cousin of the Grizzly. Biologists estimate that about 150 to 500 Black Bears now roam Angeles National Forest.

Mule Deer in Malibu

The regions only native deer species is called the mule deer and it can be found in all the mountains and wild-lands within and surrounding the city. They are common in the Hollywood hills, Santa Monica Mountains and there numbers throughout the county are estimated in the thousands.













There is a marine species called Grunions and they are native only to the shores of Southern California, they are the only known fish to lay its eggs on land. Between March and August, they come onshore in large numbers to lay eggs and bury them in the sand. The sand protects the eggs for up to nine days until ready to hatch. It is legal to catch grunions while they are on the beach, but only with bare hands. 










Of-course there are numerous amounts of different animal species native to Los Angeles and the list could cover well into the hundreds, although the most numerous is probably a city dweller and a rodent that goes by the name "Rat."














Sources:


L.A. Almanac