Golden Eagles To The West, Cougar At Will Rogers, And Protection Status For Lions, Oh My

If there is any doubt that Malibu was in the middle of the largest urban national Park in the United States … we have three wild animal stories for you this morning.

First … pair of golden eagle chicks, a fully protected species in the state of California, have been found in a nest in a remote area of the western Santa Monica Mountains.

Golden eagles used to nest throughout the Santa Monica Mountains – from the Gorge in Malibu Creek State Park to Boney Mountain in Point Mugu State Park.

But the last known confirmed nesting in the local mountains was in the early 1980s. 

Two golden eagle chicks have been spotted … flying alongside their parents in the Boney Mountain wilderness … about 15 miles northwest of Trancas.

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Second … Los Angeles police officers earlier this week found a female mountain lion almost all the way down at the beach at Temescal Canyon

The cougar had wandered down the canyon past Palisades High School and was spotted in the Tahitian Terrace mobile home park … near P C H at Will Rogers State Beach.

State game wardens and the National Park Service researchers were called in.

She was hit with a tranquilizer dart … tagged and hauled out by the LAPD.

Now named P-75, the healthy young female is the newest mountain lion to join the National Park Service’s study of mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains.

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And third … will the state declare the cougars living in the Santa Monica Mountains to be a separate sub species??

And if so … what legally required steps would be taken to protect the subspecies under California’s endangered species Act.

Those are two very important questions from Malibu … after the Center for BiologicalDiversity filed a petitions with the state.

It’s a legal petition … not a popularity contest that the public can sign to support.

The biologists have filed a complex scientific study and a legal argument.

They say the isolated cougars in our local mountains are a separate genetic subspecies from cougars elsewhere in California … and because they’re in danger they need protection.

That could be a ban on development.

That could mean lower speed limits on mountain roads.

It could mean tell trans being forced to build underpasses or wildlife bridges at your points.

Any could mean a restriction on development in mountain life habitat.

And like we just told you … Mountain lion habitat extends all the way down to the beach in our area.

The state Department of Fish and wildlife we’ll make a decision on the legal petition … it will then doubtlessly be decided in the court rooms.