Linkages Are Critical for Wildlife in the Malibu Mountains

• Ways Must Be Found for Species to Navigate Varied Terrain

BY ANNE SOBLE

Five years of research and fieldwork on how to protect and enhance wildlife habitat in the Malibu mountains, and the rest of Southern California, culminated in a report issued last week that focuses on what will be a key word in the contemporary conservation lexicon—linkages.
The objective is a concerted multi-agency effort to protect pathways between habitat areas in parklands, including the Santa Monica Mountains National Re-creation Area.
The South Coast Missing Linkages Project is the effort of a partnership of public and private conservation entities with the goal of protecting some 70 travel routes for animals in an area that extends from Santa Barbara County to below the U.S.-Mexico border.
The emphasis is on protection of animals that are endangered or have small populations with a limited gene pool, including the mountain lions and bobcats of the Santa Monica Mountains.
The new plan focuses primarily on how to provide and protect linkages between the region’s national parks and forests.
The report suggests several ways short of public ownership of the land that could assure that pathways would be maintained, including easements and assistance programs for private landowners, such as funding to promote use of wildlife passable fencing and other tools.
The report describes the Santa Monica-Sierra Madre Connection, the inland to coastal connection that includes Malibu, as a “rich mosaic of oak woodland, savanna, chaparral, coastal sage scrub, grasslands, and riparian forests and woodlands, [that] has several major strands to accommodate diverse species and ecosystem functions”
In this area, Route 101 is a major barrier, and there’s an emphasis on plans for wildlife-specific crossing structures, such as alternative bridging to separate animals from vehicles. Culverts are another important option.
The report’s premise is “nature needs room to roam,” and the need to reduce the “tension between habitat fragmentation and conservation is particularly acute.”
Still, the outlook is positive as there are large swatches of land in public hands in the Santa Monicas. As long as ecological connectivity is an environmental priority, species can be saved.