CALIFORNIA KING SNAKE 

A good selection of California native reptiles and amphibians are among the 60 species that will be on display at the new Los Angeles Zoo exhibit aptly named the LAIR (Living Amphibian, Invertebrates and Reptiles) slated to open to the public on March 8.

Most folks will probably enjoy getting nose to nose with a Pacific rattlesnake or a California king snake at the zoo rather than coming upon them while out hiking or walking the dog. That’s part of the “fatal” attraction the public has to these creepy critters, says Ian Recchio, curator of reptiles and amphibians.

“People love seeing animals that scare them in a safe environment,” he says. “This is going to be one of our more popular attractions at the zoo.”

NOT SCARY. BUT NOT REAL EITHER.

We hope the residents will take to their fancy new digs. At a recent sneak peek, zoo staff was busy putting the finishing touches on the six exhibit spaces that take up two buildings and a courtyard just down the hill from the merry-go-round. Glass enclosures feature subfloor heating, UV basking lights as well as plenty of natural light from skylights. Live plants are intermingled with fake ones. All in all, pretty snazzy.

While the main LAIR houses all kind of strange and exotic lizards, mambas and poison dart frogs (many endangered or critically endangered), we are very partial to an outdoor area dubbed Oak Woodland Pond, a space set aside to see if Griffith Park critters – like Western fence lizards – will hunker down and volunteer to be display creatures. Around the corner, the Native Ring or Arroyo Lagarto will showcase desert iguanas and desert tortoises.

The smaller Desert LAIR building features animals from the four Southwestern deserts of Chihuahua, Sonora, Mojave and the Great Basin. Sonoran toads, gopher snakes and desert hairy scorpions will soon be checking out their new environs.

All in all, we’re glad to see that our natives will be well represented at the new exhibit – with the exception of our local endangered mountain yellow-legged frogs which are off limits to the public. Recchio has been overseeing the current conservation effort; last year 160 little jumpers were released into the wilds of the San Jacinto Mountains. Yellow-legged mamas are expected to start laying eggs in the next few weeks in their secluded and chilly zoo locale.

The zoo’s other conservation programs will, however, be in the spotlight at the new “Care and Conservation Room” which reminds us of the glass fishbowl that show paleontologists at the Page Museum working with fossils.  Zoo guests can watch behind-the-scenes activities such as reptile egg storage, nursery, food prep, etc. We’re hoping to catch a glimpse of something along these lines:

– Brenda Rees, SoCalWild

Beauty, schmeauty….this year voters put cast their ballots for one of the world’s rarest, most imperiled, and we think majestic birds to fly the skies of SoCal.

The California condor has been named the 2011 Audubon California Bird of the Year in an annual online poll that invites readers and nature-lovers to choose a feathered friend for the coveted title. Nearly 35 percent of the 10,000 total votes went to the red-headed California condor which, in addition to California, can be found in several southwestern states and Mexico.

By no means delicate or dainty, the magnificent condor is one of the largest flying birds in the world with a wingspan of often more than nine feet. Despite – or in spite of? – its size, the California condor has been on a downward spiral for more than 100 years. It’s been on the endangered list in 1967; in the mid-1980s, only 22 birds existed in the wild which kicked off an aggressive captive breeding and release program by government agencies and non-profit organizations.

Today, there are 394 total condors living with 205 of them out in the wild. Big threats to those condors are wind turbines and lead from ammunition in their prey animals.

We all know that the holiday season often brings us together with hard-to-get-along guests – but a Southern California family recently discovered a very unwelcomed visitor creeping around the parameters of their Rancho Bernardo home. No it wasn’t a crazed alcoholic uncle scoping out the eggnog bowl, it was a poisonous Gila monster.

Rare, venomous and usually found in the deserts of Arizona and Nevada, the two-foot long reptile was captured by San Diego Department of Animal Services – it’s awaiting its fate at the Carlsbad animal shelter. The Giorgettas found the critter while they were outdoors doing yard work on the day before Christmas Eve. The couple immediately called the authorities about the creature with black and yellow stripes and beaded skin.

Authorities can’t say how the critter got there since Gila monsters are pretty darn dangerous and illegal to possess without a permit. (We must note, however, that while these reptiles are chock full of poison, they pose little threat to humans because they are a slow-moving beastie.)

As the only venomous lizard in the United States, Gila monsters are a protected species.

Gila monster image from U.S. Fish and Wildlife

On the path to becoming educational ambassadors, the two staving mountain lion cubs found in Burbank earlier this month are “responding well and spending a lot of time with their new trainers,” says David Jackson, director of Zoo to You, a conservation education facility in Paso Robles where the pair were finally delivered earlier this week.

The she-cubs were discovered Dec. 20 under a car near downtown Burbank with residents poking sticks at them (say, we can we all poke sticks at them?); animal authorities transported the pair for a quick stint at the California Wildlife Center in Calabasas for medical care and evaluation.

Today, the young cats are recovering in a comfy indoor room (“much too cold outside for them in their condition,” says Jackson) and have trainers visiting them 8-10 times a day to teach the scared felines that these humans are friends, not foes. Wildlife experts agree that such young cats are not good candidates to be released back into the wild because they haven’t been trained to hunt and they’ve been overexposed to human contact.

“It’s going to take a lot of time and patience for them to realize that they don’t have to be afraid of us,” says Jackson. “But we have great trainers and we never use negative reinforcement with our animals, even if they misbehave. When that happens, we ‘become a tree.’ We stop everything, stay calm and ignore their behavior.”

Overall, Jackson says he’s seen progress in the few days since the cubs have arrived at the compound. Looking somewhat like giant housecats with oversized paws, the cubs bear fluffy tawny fur and dark-blue eyes that will eventually turn gold when they are older. Sure, there’s a lot of spitting and hissing, but that’s all part of the process, says Jackson. His biggest goal, however, is to see them put on weight.

Upon arrival, they were a scrawny 9 and 11 pounds. “They should be 25-35 pounds. But you can’t just stuff ‘em,” says Jackson. “You start them out with bland foods, chicken, mice, rats and then work up to the richer meat they need.”

It’s unknown what happened to their mother, but Jackson recently heard from a Department of Fish and Game (DFG) biologist who has been tracking animals in the nearby Verdugo Mountains – seems as if a wildlife tracking video caught an adult male with two cubs back on October 27. “It’s possible that these are the same cubs,” says Jackson who theorizes that the two youngsters probably ventured into human territory for food while the older – and wiser – male stayed back.

Click here to watch video of cubs in the Verdugo Mountains. Click here to view the nearby adult male.

The DFG estimates that there are between 4,000 – 6,000 mountain lions in California; they are not endangered, but they’re considered a “specially protected species” and cannot be hunted.

Mountain lions are the ultimate boogie-man of urban predators. They are painted as the vicious creatures that stalk the shadows for hikers on the trail, children in playgrounds, old people at the bus stop, or pampered pets in backyards.

So untrue, says Jackson who points to a DFG record of mountain lion attacks in the state of California. Since 1890, only seven people were killed by mountain lions and ten nonfatal incidents were reported.  “You’re more likely to get hit by lightning twice then be attacked by a mountain lion,” he says. “They don’t want to be near us at all.”

Mountain lions are not the blood-hungry cat of our collective human nightmare; in truth they are solitary hunters, elusive and shy. They don’t hang out in prides and only meet up with others of their kind for mating. They want to be left alone and far away from humans as possible.

Still urban and rural folk need constant reminders that the big cat in not their enemy. Jackson hopes that these two she-cubs – which have garnered a lot of public sympathy and local fame – offer a unique chance for conservation education.

“The potential that these two have is enormous,” he says. With more than 300 education animals, his facility currently has two zoo-born older male mountain lions. Having a pair of wild cats with a dramatic backstory may soften the hardest of hearts and allow their real identity of the mountain lion to shine through the fear.

“I think these cubs present an awesome chance for many people to realize the beauty and grace of these predators that live so close to us,” says Jackson. “What a wonderful way these two can change many hearts and minds about mountain lions.”

 Note: Zoo to You is accepting name suggestions from the public on the organization’s Facebook page. Earn long lasting fame for sending in the perfect moniker for the girls.

By Brenda Rees, photos courtesy of the California Wildlife Center

When life gives you lemons, we’re told to make lemonade. But when troubled times came to Glenn Prichard earlier this year, he decided to go a different route and, instead of a frosty tart beverage, this Santa Clarita resident took up the task of creating and distributing nesting boxes so farmers can go organic and barn owls can find safe homes.

Once a league pitcher on a farm team for the Anaheim Angels (“drafted me right out of high school; played for five years before two elbow operations”), Prichard headed up his own construction company for 30 years. But with a downturned economy, he now finds satisfaction creating structures on a smaller scale – ones that connect wildlife to local farmers in a symbiotic way.

“It’s fulfilling and exciting,” Prichard says about his journeys into Central and Southern California farmlands where he meets farmers, erects nesting boxes and keeps tabs on how area barn owls are adjusting to their new abodes. “I enjoy this and it’s a lot less stress. I meet real down-to-earth people and it’s a way we can care for the environment together.”

Like most great ideas, the notion of working with owls came to him happenstance and through connections.

An outdoorsy fellow, Prichard volunteered at many local rescues (including local raptor rehab centers) and is a board member for a wolf rescue in Idaho, the Wolf Education Rescue Center (WERC).  Through his relationships with WERC, Pritchard hooked up with Portland-based Chris Anderson of Owl Brand Discovery Kits who sells owl pewk as an educational tool. (Yep, pewk, regurgitated owl prey barfed up in a tidy pellet package. Science teachers can raise their awesome factor when they bring these mystery pellets into a classroom for an afternoon of dissection and discovery…and hey, squeamish students, no blood!)

Prichard started traveling to local farms to collect pellets which he found under and in existing barn owl nesting boxes. To his dismay, he discovered many boxes hadn’t been maintained in years, some were caked with poop and caustic, some were badly broken with sides falling off.  On the ground, he saw bones of dead babies and broken eggs lying in the dirt.  Hmmmm……

Brain wheels in motion, Prichard became a quick and avid student of barn owls and nesting boxes. He talked with raptor experts (“barns owls are cavity dwellers, they have been known to tunnel inside hay bales to make nests”), read everything he could find about the bird (“they are nocturnal birds that swallow their prey whole”) and explored what makes a good nesting box (“a baffle wall protects the nesting eggs from unwanted paws”).

Overall, nesting boxes are relatively new additions to farms; a trend started in the late 1980s when “sustainable” was a new concept. By encouraging barn owls onto their property, farmers use the raptor’s natural hunger to keep pests – such as gophers, rats, field mice, voles and more – from destroying precious crops. No need for poisons and traps since barn owls are effective and always ready for another meal, especially when there are babies with open beaks back home. The raptors are not territorial (you can have a lot of owls in the area, they don’t mind the company), don’t migrate, only hunt at night, and will keep coming back if there’s enough food and shelter.

Prichard established his newest venture this year, Nature’s Remedy, and through it, he offers nesting boxes, (handmade by a local disabled war veteran) and lifetime maintenance on leasing boxes for any size farms.

He assists farmers in placing the right size boxes in the right location. Too often, he discovered boxes were routinely placed on power poles (“a big no-no!”) and affixing them to trees only invites raccoons and other hungry critters to go after eggs and owlets. The best solution is putting a nesting box on atop a platform on a free-standing pole. Voila – a room with a view.

Today, Prichard travels farmlands erecting and cleaning nesting boxes as well as preaching the gospel of Let Nature Help You. “Part of what I do when I’m out there in the fields is education, helping farmers understand that baiting and trapping pests can lead to other problems, especially when you leave poisoned animals out there for others to eat,” he says.

In the last six months, Prichard has placed 60 boxes at area farms. On the average, boxes cost about $100 to make and $250 to maintain for its life span with is about 5-7 years. Pritchard’s goal is to place as many as he can, but he’s discovered that even asking what seems like a small amount for his goods and services doesn’t fit in many farm budgets. Some farms can accommodate up to 30 boxes; acreage is after all, everything.

That’s why Prichard’s Nature’s Remedy teamed up with the folks at WERC and Owl Brand Discovery Kits to create the non-profit HOOT Project, a way for everyday citizens to financially help the cause of bringing nesting boxes to farm fields. Donations help Prichard continue his work, and even if money isn’t flowing in buckets, he says “I’ll put up as many as I can, whether the donations come or not because I truly believe in this.”

Maybe the cause resonates with Prichard because this current career has given him newfound energy. If he’s not out in the fields or building boxes, Prichard is researching ways to introduce the nesting box ideal to scouting troops, high school woodshop classes and big home improvement businesses that could eventually sponsor the project with wood donations. “Tons of potential, a lot of interest,” he says. “Lot of work to do.”

Of all the titles he’s had – athlete, construction expert, self-made businessman, entrepreneur  – Prichard gets a kick out of his new moniker: “When they see me coming, the farmers holler, ‘Hey, here comes the Owl Guy,’’ he says with a laugh. “Sure, I used to be an Angel, but now I’m picking up owl pewk, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m right where I belong.”

Click here to learn more about the HOOT project.

By Brenda Rees; Photos courtesy of Nature’s Remedy

Promising to have more insight into the gooey world of Mid Whilsire Los Angeles (albeit 40,000 years ago), the new Tar Pits site features a whole mess of cool interactive components. On tap will be the latest research and ongoing excavations along with downloadable scavenger hunts, interactive maps, video tours, cool photography and study guides.  

In addition, the site will also contain the up-to-date paleontological deets from around the globe — and how Page Museum scientists’ research further illuminates the study of  ”What Was Once Here.”

Website visitors can also see the path of research;  from excavation sites (like the ongoing one at Project 23) to the lab where specimens are prepared and studied.

Course, we always love a good excuse to go see the Page in person (the wall of saber-toothed cat skulls, the smell of tar, the determination on the faces of scientists in the Fish Bowl), but this website promises to give us a little extra bang for our cyberbuck.  Yup. We’ll click and add to our favorites.

Transitions are tough. We know how hard it is to pack up belongings and move.  Broken dishes, unruly movers, sorting through the junk, adjusting to a new environment. But imagine how it is for wildlife that – with no intention of moving in the first place – are uprooted and presented with a new home.

The current Desert Sunlight Solar project north of Desert Center is plugging away with post crews, rail crews and tilt crews busy at work. Also employed on site are tribal representatives and archeologists along with biologists who are monitoring wildlife, i.e. relocating ones that make their way into the area, and tracking the ones already moved out.

Local biologists are particularly keeping an eye for kit foxes, burrowing owls and desert tortoises. They are developing “passive” methods to keep wildlife away – in the case of kit foxes, they are emptying burrows, sprinkling scented oils and making an annoying ruckus.

 According to the Desert Sun:

After careful and repeated surveying, four desert tortoises were found and have been relocated north of the project, said Eric Green, a biologist who has surveyed and relocated tortoises for 20 years.

While tortoise relocation carries significant risks — some studies show a 50 percent mortality rate — Green said the four animals from the Desert Sunlight site so far are doing well. The animals are tracked via radio chips, and Green visits the relocation site daily.

Unlike San Bernardino County’s Ivanpah solar project — which shut down for two months earlier this year when more tortoises than expected were found — the Desert Sunlight site was surveyed in summer and fall, when tortoises are most active before hibernating, Green said. He and his team knew generally where and how many of the animals were on the site before moving in for the relocation.

Only time will tell if the determined critters will make their way back to the solar site — yup, it’s often as Dorothy said, “There’s no place like home.”

Photo: Fish and Wildlife Service

Giant Pacific octopus, NOAA

What lurks out in the darkest seas? Monsters, mankind’s angels…or both?

It may be more philosophy then physiology when nature/science author and cephalopod enthusiast Wendy Williams discusses her latest book, Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid at Long Beach’s Aquarium of the Pacific on Thursday, Dec. 1.

The author

Throughout history, cephalopods have always the bad guy and never the hero. Aristotle called them “stupid,” and ancient mariners scared the be-jeezers out of land folk with tales about the deep water devils. Krakens. Soul-less. Horrific.

Even in modern times, literature and film paint a cruel portrait of these creatures as brainless, slippery, killing machines. Think: Jules Verne classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to the campy It Came From Beneath the Sea – a flick which Williams saw as a wide-eyed child. She admits that that bad B-movie probably fueled her initial hesitation about octopuses – until she met them close-up and personal.

Now with a genuine affinity for these no-bones beasties, Williams knows that knowledge can replace fear – and she’s armed with plenty of facts, stories and scientific discoveries that can change anyone’s trepidation to admiration in a heartbeat.

In her book – and no doubt her lecture – Williams explains that learning more about squids, octopi and cuttlefish could mean big things for us humans. Cephalopod research could provide the answers to unlocking Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, help obstetricians deliver babies better and provide neuroscientists with hands-on insights.  Heck, for hundreds of years, scientists have used the squid neuron to study our human neurons – because we are so similarly designed. Humans and squid also share the same “camera” style eyeball with lens and cornea. Makes you want to cuddle up with your inner cuttlefish, doesn’t it?

At the Aquarium of the Pacific, Williams will check up on the house giant Pacific octopus in the Northern Pacific Gallery as well as discuss the latest news about the decrease of Humboldt squid in the waters off the Pacific.

“People are telling me that they aren’t finding them much at all” she says in her home in Cape Cod about the large reddish squid that hunt in groups which surprised California marine biologists a few years ago with phenomenal numbers. (In her book, Williams follows a Monterey Bay researcher who delves into the mystery of why such off-the-charts numbers of Humboldt squid.)

Researcher Julie Stewart with her Humboldt subjects

Williams says she expects to field questions about how dangerous these creatures are (“Everyone wants to know,” she says with a well-meaning sigh) as well as discussions into their intelligence.

Admitting that she didn’t know that much about cephalopods before the book, Williams says she “wasn’t ready for everything I learned. Things go on in the ocean that constantly surprise me and make me question what exactly intelligence is.”

Williams tells the story of the blanket octopus that “rips the tentacles off a Portuguese man o war and uses it as a sword. Just amazing that this creature knows to do this.”  There are the Home Depot-style octopi that build cities out of corral, broken bottles and other trash bits. A squid’s ability to magically change colors to escape detection is mesmerizing.

“I think the major thing to think about is that there are all kinds of intelligence in the sea, and we just don’t see it,” she says. But by introducing us landlubbers to the work of scientists who are delving deeper in those murky waters, Williams attempt to raise us out of our fear and put us into a place where we can come eyeball-to-eyeball with a giant Pacific squid…and not blink.

Wendy Williams at the Aquarium of the Pacific, 7 -8:30 p.m., Thursday, December 1, 2011. $5. For more information and for reservation, call (562) 590-3100, ext. 0.

(FYI: Williams’ book was just named one of the 10 Best Books of 2011 in Outdoors and Nature by Amazon. Holiday gift time, yes!)

– Brenda Rees

The problem with estimations is that, well, they are just guesses. Educated predications, sure, but still guesses.

Pining for some hard empirical data, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently launched the first ever black oystercatcher survey for California. Apparently, scientists have a handle on the number of these birds with the hypnotic yellow eyes living in Alaska and Canada…but strangely, not California where they inhabit rocky shores and feast on mussels, limpets and other invertebrates.

The initial result of this survey presents higher numbers for the orange-beaked birds than previous estimations. (Hard data does have its rewards.)

According to Audubon Magazine:

… [Results of] the state’s first-ever oystercatcher survey this past June…was surprisingly positive: More than 150 volunteers counted 175 nests and 1,346 birds, far more than the previous estimate of 1,000.

Overall, the survey is trying to protect and prevent the black oystercatcher from being placed on the Endangered Species list – more oystercatchers also are a gauge as to how the intertidal landscape is faring. More oystercatchers – better marine ecosystem.

Audubon California’s seabird conservation coordinator, Anna Weinstein, explains how durning the census-taking, she was surprised to see oystercatchers nesting close to western gulls.

“One volunteer scientist hypothesized that black oystercatchers nest near western gulls because they chase away predators like ravens and peregrine falcons….As western gulls, California gulls, and peregrine falcons increase, we’re seeing real defense on the oystercatchers’ part. Their bright orange beaks are long, they’re a large-bodied bird, and they’re aggressive. They don’t just sit there and let their babies get plucked off. It’s really nice to see because it gives you a sense that as their world changes, they at least have some tools to cope.”

Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife