The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has recommended granting threatened species status to roughly 1,400 mountain lions roaming the Central Coast and Southern California, pointing to grave threats posed by freeways, rat poison and fierce wildfires.
The determination, released Wednesday, is not the final say but signals a real possibility that several clans of the iconic cougars will be listed under the California Endangered Species Act.
It’s a move that supporters say will give the vulnerable animals a chance at recovery, but detractors have argued it will make it harder to get rid of lions that pose a safety risk to people and livestock.
The recommendation was “long overdue,” Charlton Bonham, director of the state wildlife department, said during a California Fish and Game Commission meeting.
It arrives about six years after the Center for Biological Diversity and Mountain Lion Foundation petitioned the Commission to consider listing a half-dozen isolated lion populations that have suffered steep declines from being hit by cars, poisoned by rodenticides and trapped by development.
The following year, in 2020 the Commission found the request might be warranted, giving the lions temporary endangered species protections as “candidates” for listing. It also prompted the state wildlife department to put together a report to inform the Commission’s final decision.
The next step is for state wildlife commissioners to to vote on the recommendation, possibly in February.
Brendan Cummings, conservation director for Center for Biological Diversity, hailed the moment as “a good day, not just for mountain lions, but for Californians.”
If the commissioners adopt the recommendation, as he believes they will, then the “final listing of the species removes any uncertainty about the state’s commitment to conserving and recovering these ecologically important, charismatic and well-loved species that are so much a part of California.”
The report recommends listing lions “in an area largely coinciding” with what the petitioners requested, which includes the Santa Ana, San Gabriel, San Bernardino, Santa Monica, Santa Cruz and Tehachapi mountains.
It trims off small portions along the northern and eastern borders of what was proposed, including agricultural lands in the Bay Area and a southeastern portion of desert — areas where lions haven’t been documented, according to Cummings.
Officials in the report note that most of the lion groups proposed for listing are contending with a lack of gene flow because urban barriers keep them from reaching one another.
In Southern California, lions have shown deformities from inbreeding, including kinked tails and malformed sperm. There’s an almost 1 in 4 chance, according to research, that mountain lions could become extinct in the Santa Monica and Santa Ana mountains within 50 years.
The late P-22 — a celeb mountain lion that inhabited Griffith Park – personified the tribulations facing his kind. Rat poison and car collisions battered him from the inside out. He was captured and euthanized in late 2022, deemed too sick to return to the wild because of injuries and infection.
For some species, protections come in the form of stopping chainsaws or bulldozers. But imperiled lions, Cummings said, need their habitats stitched together in the form of wildlife crossings — such as the gargantuan one being built over the 101 Freewayin Agoura Hills. He added that developments that could restrict their movement should get more scrutiny.
Critics of the effort to list lion populations have said that it will stymie residential and commercial projects.
California is home to roughly 4,170 mountain lions, according to the recent report, but not all are equal in their struggle.
Many lion populations, particularly in northwest coastal forests, are hearty and healthy.
Protections are not being sought for those cats. Some, in fact, would like to see their numbers reduced amid some high-profile conflicts.
Bonham, the director of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, spoke to concerns about public safety at the recent meeting, alluding to the tragic death of young man after being mauled by a cougar last year in Northern California.
“These are really delicate issues and the conversation I know in the coming years is going to have to grapple with all that,” said Bonham, who will be stepping down this month after nearly 15 years in his role.
California’s lions already enjoy certain protections. In 1990, voters approved a measure that designated them a “specially protected species” and banned hunting them for sport.
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