LAX Home to New Legless Lizard Discovery

LAX Home to New Legless Lizard Discovery

For all those political secessionists, here is another reason to split California in half. Four previously unknown species of legless lizards have been unearthed in California, the only state in the U.S. that’s been home to a single legless lizard species, the California legless lizard. Now, centuries of years in the making, this critter has […]

The Birds are Back in Town

The Birds are Back in Town

The annual return of the migrating Vaux’s swifts to downtown L.A. is here. Flapping it in from Southern Alaska to their Central America winter homes, the vauxies are, according to Jeff Chapman, director of the Audubon Center at Debs Park, “right on time” despite reports that they have started their southward move a little later […]

Blue-Footed Booby Spied in SoCal Waters

Blue-Footed Booby Spied in SoCal Waters

“I think I have looked out at the Pacific Ocean thousands of times looking for birds, but I have never expected to see this bird,” says Dan Cooper, independent biologist who spied this morning a Blue-footed booby at about 7:45 am off the coast of Malibu near Gladstone’s Restaurant. Cooper had stopped at the overlook […]

Bats in the Spotlight

Bats in the Spotlight

“Photographing bats is like fishing; you can’t see them, you just cast a line and hope you catch something,” says wildlife photographer Joe McDonald about the challenge of capturing images of the night flyers. Along with partner and wife Mary Ann, McDonald’s images will join other bat-centric photographs (from Christian Ziegler, Louie Schwartzberg and Leighton Reid […]

Sepulveda Basin Still Waiting

Sepulveda Basin Still Waiting

“With all this interest in the L.A. River revitalization, I just wish people would realize that the Sepulveda Basin is the nursery of the river,” says Kris Ohlenkamp of the San Fernando Valley Audubon Society. “Rookeries of great blue herons, night crowned herons, cormorants, all of these birds you see on the L.A. River nest […]

Delist Gray Wolves?

Delist Gray Wolves?

We know that gray wolves have never made SoCal their home. Heck, you’d have to go back to the Ice Age to find the canine’s long-gone cousin, the dire wolf, which once roamed in and around the Los Angeles basin. But in 2011 the big male wolf OR-7 nicknamed “Journey” entered into Northern California, it […]

Wild Neighbors

Wild Neighbors

Rodney King wanted to know, “Why can’t we just all get along?” and if humans are having troubles dealing with other humans…how are ever going to live with our wild neighbors?  (And no, we’re not talking about those punks who live down the street at the noisy house.) “Does LA Appreciate Its Wild Animals?” is […]

Scratchy, Lousy Deer

Scratchy, Lousy Deer

Imagine tens of thousands of insects smaller than a flea infecting, hatching and crawling all over your skin. Welcome to world of some deer in California. Researchers at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife are studying a hair-loss syndrome across the state – a condition that originates with tiny non-native lice that infect California […]

New Lizard Species Discovered in Torrance

New Lizard Species Discovered in Torrance

An established species of reptiles not typically found in Southern California has recently been discovered in a residential backyard  in Torrance. Commonly known as the Indo-Pacific house gecko, these small lizards are usually found in India, the Philippines, Southeast Asia, Australia and throughout Polynesia. The Torrance homeowner was checking out his property when he discovered the young […]

Hummingbird Watching Goes High Tech

Hummingbird Watching Goes High Tech

A new program from the National Audubon Society wants Americans to take our universal love of hummingbirds to new heights. “Hummingbirds at Home” is a citizen science project that invites not only hardcore birders but newcomers to help researchers understand the daily life of the zippiest bird of the Western world.  A new free mobile […]

Update: Griffith Park Mountain Lion Healthy

A new blog post by Urban Carnivores reports on the status of a colllared mountain lion, P22, that researchers have been following for more than a year in the wilds of Griffith Park. The ultimate takeaway from the post is that “P22 continues to exhibit natural behavior (e.g., avoiding people) and stay healthy (e.g., finding […]

Desert Kit Fox, a Threatened Species?

Desert Kit Fox, a Threatened Species?

Desert kit foxes, those small, night-loving, rodent-eating mammals, are a little closer to being listed as California’s next threatened species. This week, the folks at the Center for Biological Diversity (CMD)  filed to list the fox under the California Endangered Species Act (CalESA) which would give foxes more clout when developers come with shovels to disrupt their dwindling […]

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