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Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area

Overpass To Help Reconnect Wildlife Habitat At Santa Monica Mountains

Crossing ten lanes of California's 101 Freeway, which sees more than 300,000 vehicles a day, is tricky at best, and often deadly, for mountain lions. When ground is broken Friday for a wildlife overpass spanning the freeway, it will mark a step towards safely reconnecting some of the fragmented habitat the lions need as they move about the region that includes Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

National Parks Traveler Episode 127: Santa Monica Mountains Wildlife Corridor

Santa Monica Mountains mountain lions, 101 Freeway, national park podcast, national park podcasts

Mountain lions in California, in and around Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, have many challenges they must overcome to survive. The species faces a continuous onslaught of threats -- from poaching, disease and poisoning to drought and wildland fires.  But one threat tops them all -- a fragmented habitat that prevents this stealthy and solitary creature from safely accessing the huge territory it needs to find genetically diverse mates.  

National Parks Traveler Episode 126: Saving Santa Monica Mountains' Mountain Lions

Santa Monica Mountains mountain lions.

A whopping $38 million has been raised to date for the construction of a wildlife corridor over the 101 Freeway west of Los Angeles.  When completed, the overpass will be the largest in the world, spanning 10 lanes of highway and access roads and connecting the fragmented wildlife habitat around the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. It will benefit all wildlife in southern California’s richly diverse ecosystem, but especially the declining mountain lion population.  

Two Separate Populations Of Threatened Frogs Breeding At Santa Monica Mountains

California red-legged frogs might be a threatened species, but those in the Santa Monica Mountains of California are proving to be a resilient species, as well. While the November 2018 Woolsey Fire swept across most of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area there, two separate populations of the frogs have been found breeding in the area burned by the fire.

Bobcat Turns Charred Oak Tree At Santa Monica Mountains NRA Into Nursery

While the Woolsey Fire that swept through Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area back in 2018 charred much of the landscape, not all was entirely destroyed, and in fact has provided shelter for a pregnant bobcat. Park staff say a bobcat that was fitted with a radio collar more than a year after the fire turned a charred oak tree into a nursery for her three kittens.

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