Linkages Are Critical for Wildlife in the
Malibu Mountains
• Ways Must Be Found for Species
to Navigate Varied Terrain
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
multiagency effort to protect pathways between habitat
areas in parklands, including the Santa Monica Mountains
National Recreation 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.
