nibble

I’m sure you heard something about the mountain lion shot in Berkeley near Chez Panisse at the end of August. It was slinking through the neighborhoods at 2 am and leaping over fences before a neighbor called the police. For a short period of time they hoped they could drive it out of the urban area into the park, but then gave up and killed it with a shotgun. It was a female, around 95 lbs, and surely the closest brush with a mountain lion that part of Berkeley has ever known.

Could something else have been done? Zara McDonald, of the Felidae Conservation Fund in Sausalito says no. Even if the police had used a tranquilizer gun they wouldn’t have known where to bring the big cat. Zara was the dynamic speaker at the most recent Valley of the Moon lecture. She’s involved with the Santa Cruz Moutain Lion project and co-founder of the Bay Area Puma Project that is in its early stages. It is estimated that, given the population of humans we have now around the state, our cat numbers are ‘at capacity’. We don’t have room for many more, although we clearly need to figure out how to take care of the ones we have.

Enter Jim Hale (remember him from the article in Bay Nature?). He wants to develop a mobile crisis unit that can respond the next time a Big Cat wanders where he shouldn’t be. He would like to train the local police, network with wildlife advocates and educate the public about the value of these animals. My dinner guest last night, Cindy Spring of Close to Home, wants to help, and Gary Bogue thinks it’s an idea worth getting behind and wants to be involved.

This is an idea in its infancy, but one that these people are passionate about. I know we’ll hear more about it soon. I thought I’d give you an initial glimpse so you can see how these things get started. Good people with good ideas getting together to make a difference.

I’m told that (to the untrained eye) sleek mountain lions are somewhat ‘sexier’ than lumpy beavers, so I have every faith they’ll get lots of help!

Photo: Jeffrey Rich

The current issue of Bay Nature Magazine has an eye-popping account of mountain lions (puma concolor) in the East Bay. It is deftly written by Joan Hamilton and follows the observations of naturalist, archeologist, historian (and martinez beaver friend!) Jim “Doc” Hale. It’s a breath-taking account and well worth reading in its entirety. For me, though, the most helpful pieces were the emphasis on the need for wildlife corridors. We are pretty good at maintaining open spaces in the Bay Area, but animals rely on precious strips of land and water to get from one to the other. Like beavers, puma face their most dangerous time as juveniles when they leave their mother and go out to find territory of their own. A startling number are hit by cars trying to get to the next open patch on the “wilderness quilt”.

After tramping through the back regions of the wildest parts of the East Bay, he takes the author to the middle of Walnut creek: Broadway plaza, dense with cars, shoppers and human activity. She is incredulous until he points to a quiet stream behind an office building.

As we drive through the crowded streets, I’m wishing I were back on Rocky Ridge. But Hale is undaunted. He parks the Jeep next to a high-rise office building overlooking a small, tree-lined ribbon of water. It’s San Ramon Creek, looking at first like a token swath of greenery. But Hale calls it “one of the county’s best sections of riparian habitat, right here in the city. It serves as the only natural environment in a suburban/urban interface. Therefore it’s extremely important for wildlife movements in the county. We’ve got oaks, buckeyes, alders, cottonwoods, and all the classic riparian species. We still have chinook salmon and rainbow trout, mink, beaver, turtles, and river otter. I’ve also documented coyote, bobcat, gray fox, mountain lion, and red fox–all using this creek.”

Joan Hamilton: Bay Nature

If there is a more compelling paragraph about the importance of our urban waterways written anywhere, I have yet to read it. What better reminder could there be to us that our creeks our not just places to put street runoff or discard trash or even waystations for water on its journey to the bay. They are passage ways threading essential islands of wildness together on a precious and vulnerable necklace across the land. The precarious routes of the Spice or Silk Roads could not be more significant. Like the Ottoman empire, developed land blocks these vital routes with concrete and culverts, choking the arteries of a living ecosystem.

Jim will be leading two nature hikes on the grounds of the John Muir House for Earth Day. When we spoke about his plans and his “portable museum” I was very intrigued and couldn’t help but ask if he might consider doing the same for the beaver festival? Absolutely! He said. He was also intrigued by our paper on historic prevalence of beaver and has asked all his archeologist/anthropologist friends to send tribal info on beaver his way. Thanks ‘Doc’ for your enthusiastic support. If you’d like to hear him for yourself, his work tracking puma will be the first lecture for this years “Close to Home” nature series. Hmm…guess who will be the second?

Oh and beavers in San Ramon Creek, read that? We need some photographs soon!