#Los Angeles mountain lion

[zakeno]

firesetter (2024)kiernan sjursen-lien i painted this months ago, but today, the mountains we call home still burn. if you're in los angeles during this crisis, please stay safe- whether you are human, or not.

[reasonsforhope]

"Construction of the “largest wildlife crossing in the world” passed a significant milestone in April placing the first girders over an 8-lane freeway near Los Angeles to preserve the local mountain lion population.

After years of tireless work, erecting the first horizontal section of the 210-foot-long crossing was an historic moment for the National Wildlife Federation, the Caltrans highway department, and many private and public partners.

“We all cheered when the crane lowered the first concrete beam across the freeway, as we truly saw the bridge starting to take shape,” said an excited Beth Pratt, the California Executive Director of National Wildlife Federation.

“This structure is a testament to us all wanting a future for wildlife and mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains.”

Moving forward, up to 82 additional concrete girders will be placed, with each beam weighing between 126 and 140 tons. As these critical horizontal supports are placed, the structure will ultimately reconnect two long fractured global biodiversity hotspots in the Southern California region—providing safe passage for not only the cougars, but bobcats, deer, lizards, and coyotes, as they move between the Santa Monica Mountains and the Simi Hills of the Santa Susana mountain range.

[Note: The setting looks pretty rural in that rendering, but the wildlife crossing is actually only five minutes from the Los Angeles city border and the densely populated San Fernando Valley.]

For drivers on the 101 Freeway in Agoura Hills, the construction is interrupting traffic from 11:00 PM to 4:00 AM on one side of the highway each week (Northbound or Southbound). The FAQs can be found here.

CBS news estimates about 1,500 of these wildlife passages have been built both over and under major highways and rural roads across America.

Watch CBS’s recent feature that highlights crossings over America’s longest highway, US 90, which runs across the northern states, and how a new US grant program is paving the way for more crossings…"

-via Good News Network, May 9, 2024

-video via CBS Sunday Morning, April 21, 2024

[sitting-on-me-bum]

A remote camera captured P-22, mountain lion, roaming Griffith Park in Los Angeles in 2013.

PHOTOGRAPH BY STEVE WINTER, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION

[bumblebeeappletree]

Los Angeles is well known for its celebrities, so when the fearless cougar P-22 gained fame for making its home in the midst of the city, he inspired an effort to build the world’s largest wildlife crossing and helped spark a national campaign to support crossings and corridors everywhere.

When he came of age, P-22, like other young male mountain lions, set off to find territory and potential mates. Against all odds, he successfully traversed multiple freeways to find a new home in Griffith Park. However, this small scrap of land, like the Santa Monica Mountains he came from, remained isolated from larger mountain ranges to the east.

After years of research and outreach by local biologists and advocates like Beth Pratt, this team of conservationists pinpointed the vital location for a wildlife crossing to be built to restitch an entire ecosystem. Now a decade later, P-22’s story continues to inspire the very construction of this landmark crossing and expands what’s possible for urban wildlife coexistence.

[rjzimmerman]

‘Coexistence Is Happening’: LA Mountain Lions Change Their Hours to Avoid Recreationists. (EcoWatch)

Excerpt from this story from EcoWatch:

In a symptom of human development pushing native wildlife further outside their natural habitats, mountain lions living in the greater Los Angeles area have been changing the timing of their activities to avoid interactions with hikers, joggers, cyclists and other recreationists, according to a new study led by researchers at University of California, Davis (UC Davis).

The researchers found that mountain lions who lived in areas with more human recreation had shifted to become increasingly nocturnal compared with more remote-dwelling lions, who were primarily active around dawn and dusk, a press release from UC Davis said.

“People are increasingly enjoying recreating in nature, which is fantastic,” said lead author of the study Ellie Bolas, a UC Davis Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology, in the press release. “This flexibility we see in mountain lion activity is what allows us to share these natural areas together. Mountain lions are doing the work so that coexistence can happen.”

The authors said the findings offered a hopeful example of the coexistence of wildlife and humans in a large, densely populated area.

“Mountain lions prefer to avoid people, but in a metro area of more than 18 million people, natural areas inhabited by mountain lions and other wildlife are also heavily used by recreationists,” the press release said.

[book51ut]

Review of Open Throat by Henry Hoke

excellent! this book, which is essentially a long form poem, was so creatively and smartly written that it is hard to say anything besides - read it! I’m so impressed how the tone and language was able to fully encapsulate what the thoughts of a lion might be. The reader can feel the apathy, the bloodlust, and the sleepiness of an animal through Hoke’s words. I also personally loved that the spelling and the words the author chose mimicked what would make sense for a lion, who can’t read, would interpret those things as. I also think the reflections about the problems with human nature and the effect that humans are having on the earth from the perspective of a predator is a great choice. The lion is both a victim of human interaction with land and also sees themself within humankind.

i loved it- it was a great, relatively quick read and i recommend it for anyone looking for something a little weird.

[transit-fag]

Giving various US cities fursonas:

New York - Rat

Chicago- Pigeon

Seattle - Orca

Los Angeles - Mountain Lion

Boston - The Middle Finger

Philadelphia - Possum

Washington DC - Bald Eagle

Portland Oregon - naked mole rat

San Francisco - California Condor

Miami - Alligator

[makingqueerhistory]

Open Throat

Henry Hoke

"Open Throat is what fiction should be." --The New York Times Book ReviewA lonely, lovable, queer mountain lion narrates this star-making fever dream of a novel. A queer and dangerously hungry mountain lion lives in the drought-devastated land under the Hollywood sign. Lonely and fascinated by humanity's foibles, the lion spends their days protecting a nearby homeless encampment, observing hikers complain about their trauma, and, in quiet moments, grappling with the complexities of their gender identity, memories of a vicious father, and the indignities of sentience. When a man-made fire engulfs the encampment, the lion is forced from the hills down into the city the hikers call "ellay." As the lion confronts a carousel of temptations and threats, they take us on a tour that spans the cruel inequalities of Los Angeles and the toll of climate grief. But even when salvation finally seems within reach, they are forced to face down the ultimate question: Do they want to eat a person, or become one? Henry Hoke's Open Throat is a marvel of storytelling, a universal journey through a wondrous and menacing world recounted by a lovable mountain lion. Feral and vulnerable, profound and playful, Open Throat is a star-making novel that brings the mythic to life.

(Affiliate link above)

[seidkonaz]

los angeles' famed mountain lion p-22, photographed by steve winter

[favorite-music-tourney]

Adjusted Round 1 match ups

I’m against the government by Defiance, Ohio - Little Boxes by Malvina Reynolds

Vienna by Billy Joel - Miracle of Life by Bright Eyes

Hungry Dog on the street by the Taxpayers - Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell

Excursion Around the Bay by Derina Harvey band - I am a Union Woman by Bobbie McGee

Jolene by Dolly Parton - Wild World by Cat Stevens

At Seventeen by Janis Ian - The Battle of New Orleans by Johnny Horton

Everybody's Talkin' by Harry Nilsson - Do you Believe in Magic by the Lovin Spoonful

Blackbird by the Beatles - Mr. Tambourine Man by the Byrds

Puff the Magic Dragon by Peter Paul and Mary - Blister in the Sun by the Violent Femmes

Ooh La La by the Faces - Ain't No Sunshine by Bill Withers

Tear the Facists Down by Woody Guthrie - Fire and Rain by James Taylor

Rule #4 Fish in a Birdcage by Fish in a Birdcage - Strangers by Apes of the State

Angel From Montgomery by Bonnie Raitt - I'd work for Free by Blake Rouse

I'm not a good person by Pat the Bunny - Ho Hey by the Lumineers

Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation by Tom Paxton - Pure Obsession by Mirabai Kukathas

Not Yet/Love Run by the Amazing Devil - Budapest by George Ezra

Diamonds and Rust by Joan Baez - Paradise by John Prine

What a time to be alive by Matt Press - Ballad of a Wobbly by David Rovics

Glad to be Gay by Tom Robinson Band - Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen

All The Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands by Sufjan Stevens? - Kill the Boy Band by She/Her/Hers

Every Town will Celebrate by Mischief Brew - Oak & Ash & Thorn by The Longest Johns

The Galway Girl by Sharon Shannon and Steve Earle - Curses by the Crane Wives

You're So Vain by Carly Simon - The Chemical Worker's Song by Great Big Sea

I'm Gonna Be an Engineer by Peggy Seegar - Follow Me up to Carlow by the Young Dubliners

American Pie by Don McLean - Murder in the City by the Avett Brother

Rhododendron Honey by Leslie Fish - The Fox by Nickel Creek

California Dreamin by the Mama's and the Papa's - Ohio by Neil Young

It's too Late by Carole King - There is Power in a Union by Billy Bragg

Have you ever seen the rain by Creedence Clearwater Revival - I ain't Marching Anymore by Phil Ochs

The Wrote and Writ by Johnny Flynn - Wayward Prodigal by Cora Reef

Landslide by Fleetwood Mac - Place to Be by Nick Drake

Space Girl by Shirley Collins - Little Lion Man by Mumford and Sons

Delta Dawn by Tanya Tucker - Where have all the flowers gone by Pete Seeger

Take Me to Church By Hozier - Solidarity Forever by Utah Phillipps

Let the Mystery Be by Iris Demont - Brave as a Noun by AJJ

A Horse with No Name by America - Mrs. Robinson By Simon and Garfunkel

Tom's Diner by Suzanne Vega - A Song for a Computer Programmer by Cricket!

War on the Workers by Anne Feeney - War isn't Murder by Jesse Welles

Me and my Bobby Mcgee by Janis Joplin - For What It’s Worth by Buffalo Springfield

You're Dead by Norma Tanega - The Gambler by Kenny Rogers

Color in your Cheeks by the Mountain Goats - March of the Jobless Corps by Daniel Kahn

Stick Season by Noah Kahan - O Valencia by the Decemberists

Fuck it by Days N Daze - Dream a Little Dream of Me by Cass Elliot

Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down by The Band

Deny Defend Depose by Joe Devito - Big Rock Candy Mountain by Harry McClintock

Annie's Song by John Denver - The Funeral by Band of Horses

Union Maid by the Almanac Singers - 32 Flavors by Ani Difranco

Our House by Crosby, Stills, Nash, And Young - Fast Car by Tracy Chapman

The War Racket by Buffy Sainte-Marie - Hurt by Johnny Cash

One Great City by the Weakerathans - Loose Lips by Kimya Dawson

Feed the Machine by Poor Man's Poison - Everything I Own by Bread

I want wind to blow, the microphones - City of New Orleans by Arlo Guthrie

Todos Juntos by Los Jaivas - II: The Road Giveth by RENT STRIKE

Roll On, Columbia, Roll On by the Highway Men - Ballad of Ho Chi Min by Ewan MacColl

Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison - Time in a Bottle By Jim Croce

The Trolley Problem by Windborne - One Kind of People by Amigo the Devil

Season of the Witch by Donovan - House of the Rising Sun by the Animals

The Times they are a changing by Bob Dylan - Cats in the Cradle by Harry Chapman

Closer to Fine by the Indigo Girls - Two Headed Boy by Neutral Milk Hotel

Heave Away by the Fables - Your Heart is a Muscle the Size Of Your fist by Ramshackle Glory

Who would Jesus Bomb by Jordan Snart - Electricity by Sister Wife Sex Strike

Rhinestone Cowboy by Glen Campbell - Plastic Jesus by Tia Blake

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald By Gordon Lightfoot - Bread and Roses by Judy Collins

Sixteen Tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford - I'm a Believer by The Monkees

[luvwich]

1) one night. You personally, not your OCs. River or Mike?

2) one kink I don’t know your have (doesn’t have to be depraved)

3) you need to turn one your fic into a published book. Which one?

4) annotation of the book you wrote in you parallel life

(Choose any or answer all)

river or mike: hmmm for one night only, we know mike is The Professional there.. but river is more physically my type so get in here, detective! (answering this almost killed me)

a kink: almost everything i'm actively into is floating around somewhere in my fics and would not be surprising. i have, like, a generalized interest in kink where i think anything dealing in power exchange can be sexy or at least fascinating. that said, men in lingerie.

which fic to publish: if the goal is to sell copies, jaded probably has the broadest appeal. we've got snappy pacing, a high sex-to-pagecount ratio, i could make upwards of $14. if the goal is artistic, arpeggio (it also would benefit the most from some editing!!) even though im the most proud of crescent and think it has the best plot, it would be too hard to extract from the source material and relies a lot on canon knowledge

jacket blurb of a book i wrote in a parallel life: "Amidst the grunge and glamor of early-'90s Los Angeles, [PROTAGONIST] has few complaints. She scratches out a living cutting Z-listers' hair and spends her nights partying everywhere from Pasadena to the Palisades. In the summer of '92, things get weirder than usual. Between bottles of champagne and buzzcuts, she wonders whether she might possess a more uncanny set of skills. Also, her hunky new boyfriend claims he's actually a mountain lion from the future." <- in my parallel universe this is totally original and not another Pynchon ripoff ;)

[skatecatz]

had a dream last night that i was observing 4 mountain lions riding freight through binoculars and fretting over apartment hunting. suddenly i was drunk in los angeles stumbling around a huge convenience store in circles for the longest time. then i went to a gay bar and made out with w ftm dude on break from “military school” and felt morally bankrupt about his tongue in my mouth.

[richincolor]

We've found quite a variety of books being released today. There is romance, fantasy, music, murder, and more in the pages of these books. What will you add to your TBR pile?

Wild Dreamers by Margarita Engle Atheneum Books for Young Readers

In this stirring young adult romance from award-winning author Margarita Engle, love and conservation intertwine as two teens fight to protect wildlife and heal from their troubled pasts.

Ana and her mother have been living out of their car ever since her militant father became one of the FBI’s most wanted. Leandro has struggled with debilitating anxiety since his family fled Cuba on a perilous raft.

One moonlit night, in a wilderness park in California, Ana and Leandro meet. Their connection is instant—a shared radiance that feels both scientific and magical. Then they discover they are not a huge mountain lion stalks through the trees, one of many wild animals whose habitat has been threatened by humans.

Determined to make a difference, Ana and Leandro start a rewilding club at their school, working with scientists to build wildlife crossings that can help mountain lions find one another. If pumas can find their way to a better tomorrow, surely Ana and Leandro can too.

Saint-Seducing Gold (Forge & Fracture Saga #2) by Brittany N. Williams Amulet Books

The second book in the stunning YA historical fantasy trilogy that New York Times bestselling author Ayana Gray called “nothing short of spectacular”

There’s danger in the court of James I. Magical metal-worker Joan Sands must reforge the Pact between humanity and the Fae to stop the looming war. As violence erupts across London and the murderous spymaster Robert Cecil closes in, the Fae queen Titanea coerces Joan into joining the royal court while holding her godfather prisoner in the infamous Tower of London. Now Joan will have to survive deadly machinations both magical and mortal all while balancing the magnetic pull of her two loves—Rose and Nick—before the world as she knows it is destroyed forever.

Off With Their Heads by Zoe Hana Mikuta Disney Hyperion

Fans of Chloe Gong and Judy I. Lin will devour this Korean-inspired Alice in Wonderland retelling about two very wicked girls, forever bonded by blood and betrayal . . .

In a world where Saints are monsters and Wonderland is the dark forest where they lurk, it’s been five years since young witches and lovers Caro Rabbit and Iccadora Alice Sickle were both sentenced to that forest for a crime they didn’t commit—and four years since they shattered one another’s hearts, each willing to sacrifice the other for a chance at freedom.

Now, Caro is a successful royal Saint-harvester, living the high life in the glittering capital and pretending not to know of the twisted monster experiments that her beloved Red Queen hides deep in the bowels of the palace. But for Icca, the memory of Caro’s betrayal has hardened her from timid girl to ruthless hunter. A hunter who will stop at nothing to exact her On Caro. On the queen. On the throne itself.

But there’s a secret about the Saints the Queen’s been guarding, and a volatile magic at play even more dangerous to Icca and Caro than they are to each other…

Lush, terrifying, and uncanny, Zoe Hana Mikuta—author of Gearbreakers and Godslayers —takes a delicate knife straight through the heart of this beloved surrealist fairytale.

Kill Her Twice by Stacey Lee G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers

Los Angeles, 1932: Lulu Wong, star of the silver screen and the pride of Chinatown, has a face known to practically anyone, especially to the Chow sisters—May, Gemma, and Peony—Lulu’s former classmates and neighbors. So the girls instantly know it’s Lulu whose body they discover one morning in an out-of-the-way stable, far from the Beverly Hills mansion where she moved once her fame skyrocketed.

The sisters suspect Lulu’s death is the result of foul play, but the LAPD—known for being corrupt to the core—doesn’t seem motivated to investigate. Even worse, there are signs that point to the possibility of a police cover-up, and powerful forces in the city want to frame the killing as evidence that Chinatown is a den of iniquity and crime, even more reason it should be demolished to make room for the construction of a new railway depot, Union Station.

Worried that neither the police nor the papers will treat a Chinese girl fairly—no matter how famous and wealthy—the sisters set out to solve their friend’s murder themselves, and maybe save their neighborhood in the bargain. But with Lulu’s killer still on the loose, the girls’ investigation just might put them square in the crosshairs of a coldblooded murderer.

Punk Rock Karaoke by Bianca Xunise Viking Books for Young Readers

When life gives you guitars, smash them!

School is out for summer and Ariel Grace Jones is determined to make it one for the books! Together with their bestie bandmates, Michele and Gael, Ariel believes they’re destined to break into the music industry and out of Chicago’s Southside by singing lead in their garage punk band, Baby Hares.

But before Baby Hares can officially get into the groove, the realities of post grad life start to weigh on this crew of misfits. Ari begins to worry that it’s time to pull the plug on their dreams of making it big.

Just when all hope feels lost, a fellow punk and local icon takes an interest in their talent. It seems like he might be the only one Ariel can rely on as frustrations between bandmates reach at an all-time high.

Punk Rock Karaoke is a coming-of-age tale that draws upon the explosive joy of the underground scene, while raising questions about authenticity, the importance of community and what it means to succeed on your own terms.

Song of the Six Realms by Judy I. Lin Feiwel & Friends

Xue, a talented young musician, has no past and probably no future. Orphaned at a young age, her kindly poet uncle took her in and arranged for an apprenticeship at one of the most esteemed entertainment houses in the kingdom. She doesn’t remember much from before entering the House of Flowing Water, and when her uncle is suddenly killed in a bandit attack, she is devastated to lose her last connection to a life outside of her indenture contract.

With no family and no patron, Xue is facing the possibility of a lifetime of servitude playing the qin for nobles that praise her talent with one breath and sneer at her lowly social status with the next. Then one night she is unexpectedly called to the garden to put on a private performance for the enigmatic Duke Meng. The young man is strangely kind and awkward for nobility, and surprises Xue further with an irresistible offer: serve as a musician in residence at his manor for one year, and he’ll set her free of her indenture.

But the Duke’s motives become increasingly more suspect when he and Xue barely survive an attack by a nightmarish monster, and when he whisks her away to his estate, she discovers he’s not just some country noble: He’s the Duke of Dreams, one of the divine rulers of the Celestial Realm. There she learns the Six Realms are on the brink of disaster, and incursions by demonic beasts are growing more frequent.

The Duke needs Xue’s help to unlock memories from her past that could hold the answers to how to stop the impending war… but first Xue will need to survive being the target of every monster and deity in the Six Realms.

Blood Justice (Blood Debts #2) by Terry J. Benton-Walker Tor Teen

Cristina and Clement Trudeau have conjured the impossible: justice.

They took back their family’s stolen throne to lead New Orleans’ magical community into the brighter future they all deserve.

But when Cris and Clem restored their family power, Valentina Savant lost everything. Her beloved grandparents are gone and her sovereignty has been revoked—she will never be Queen. Unless, of course, someone dethrones the Trudeaus again. And lucky for her, she’s not the only one trying to take them down.

Cris and Clem have enemies coming at them from all directions: Hateful anti-magic protesters sabotage their reign at every turn. A ruthless detective with a personal vendetta against magical crime is hot on their tail just as Cris has discovered her thirst for revenge. And a brutal god, hunting from the shadows, is summoned by the very power Clem needs to protect the boy he loves.

Cris’s hunger for vengeance and Clem’s desire for love could prove to be their family’s downfall, all while new murders, shocking disappearances, and impossible alliances are changing the game forever.

Welcome back to New Orleans, where gods walk among us and justice isn’t served, it’s taken.

[the-peak-tmnt]

Asking a few people this! If the turtles weren't from New York, where would you like for them to live? What city or state or even country?

Whoa! I love this question!

Okay, so my choice is Los Angeles. I no longer live there, but it was my second home and I plan on moving back once my parents are gone. I was a transplant, though, so take all this with a grain of salt. Or maybe some lifelong/longtime locals can chime in and build off this!

The turtles traditionally travel around NYC via sewers and rooftops. LA is extremely spread out, though. It’s also a car city, and I think the turtles would embrace the car culture in a couple different ways.

First of all, I think we’d see a lot more of the turtles traveling like the boys did in the grocery shopping montage in Mutant Mayhem:

Lots of riding on cars in the dense LA traffic, luring under overpasses to hop a ride on the right truck, hopping over barriers along the shoulder, etc.

Secondly, I can see the turtles fixing up an old van like a 1970s/80s/90s Ford Econoline or Club Wagon or something similar as their turtle tank. I know the 87 series Party Wagon is based on a classic VW bus, but those are just too flashy and iconic for the boys to keep a low profile in modern LA. Whatever they had, it would need to look a little busted up to blend in!

That being said, I think it would be almost impossible for them to go completely unnoticed! I think they would end up in a sort of hybrid situation where they’re known to exist by Angelenos, but everyone outside of Los Angeles thinks they’re just some quirky LA urban legend. But for Angelenos, I think they’d be sort of like P-22 the mountain lion; something everyone knows is there, but only a lucky few ever actually see.

They might actually play this up by hitting up popular tourist attractions or local hotspots to let people catch a glimpse of them. Like they might swing by Griffith Observatory or Santa Monica Pier to psych people out like ‘holy shit did I really just see a turtle?!’ I think they'd get a kick out of it, and their need for secrecy wouldn't be taken as seriously as it is in most TMNT iterations because that matches the more chill vibes of LA.

I think even some locals would take advantage of this and start turtle sightseeing tours like they do celebrity sightseeing tours, and take tourists to places that the turtles have been spotted in the past. The boys might even work with some of these tours under the table and intentionally let themselves be spotted as a side hustle or something lol

Making the turtles Angelenos would also be perfect for way to play up their skateboarding hobby, because LA is a skateboarder’s paradise. There’s tons of skate parks which they’d probably be hitting up at night, but I could also see them taking advantage of the LA river and sketchier places only the most adventurous of humans try to skate.

If the turtles were Angelenos, I think they would be based in DTLA since that’s the best urban cover for them. It also gives them access to DTLA’s Metro, which would be the easiest way for them to get from DTLA to the greater Los Angeles area so they wouldn’t always have to rely on using the van.

I could keep going, but I think I’ll leave it here for now and maybe come back to this later!

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Smithsonian Magazine:

In the weeks following the outbreak of the Eaton and Palisades Fires, the conflagrations engulfed neighborhoods, forested canyons and chaparral—a type of shrubland. These fires killed more than two dozen people, displaced tens of thousands of others and affected untold numbers of animals. Mountain lions bolted across roads. People outside the fire zone suddenly saw new bird species appear in their neighborhoods. Other animals, like the trout, had no option except to shelter in place. For some long-lived animals, this wasn’t their first blaze. Intense fires that historically happened once in generations are now so commonplace that a humble California newt, which typically lives for 10 to 20 years, may have already lived through multiple blazes. Together, we have witnessed the kindling of an epoch that some environmental scientists have dubbed the Pyrocene, characterized by the frequency and intensity of its fires exacerbated by climate change.

Ironically, the seasonal drought that had turned Los Angeles County into a tinderbox kept many reptiles and amphibians safe initially. As rain never arrived, amphibians failed to become active and emerge from underground. Similarly, reptiles are less active in dry winter conditions. Many snakes and lizards must have escaped the inferno, inactive and tucked safely below. The depths would have provided refuge for some soil-dwelling invertebrates, and, for the most part, burrowing small mammals like mice and kangaroo rats should have been able to descend deep enough to avoid the heat.

Unfortunately, for some animals neither fleeing nor sheltering underground was an option. Topanga Canyon was the second-largest overwintering site for monarch butterflies this winter in Los Angeles County according to counts by the Xerces Society, a nonprofit focusing on the conservation of invertebrates. The monarchs, having completed a long migration from the Rocky Mountains to coastal California, picked a cool, shady spot to aggregate until spring. Flames encroached on the trees where butterflies roosted and, while the tree grove remains standing but singed, the status of butterflies is unclear. In a year with low returns across California, the loss of any monarchs is a harsh blow.

Scott Black, a conservationist and executive director of the Xerces Society, is hopeful some butterflies, both monarchs and other species, may have escaped. But, he acknowledges, “Some insects might be able to fly away, but I doubt it. I really doubt that almost any butterfly or bee could escape them when these fires were raging. I can’t imagine. These fires came in fast.” After the blazes, Black laments the fate of the less mobile invertebrates. “Springtails, aphids, planthoppers or parasitoid wasps. … Studies show that they’re basically just gone from the sites.”

Jann Vendetti, the associate curator of malacology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, is also hopeful some of the threatened shoulderband snails she studies have sheltered and survived, but she says that native snail response to fire is understudied. “[A population] becomes extinct before we even know it ever existed, because who was studying that tiny population?” says Vendetti, noting few other scientists look at snails, and not enough to investigate each population. “And then fire went through, and its gone.” On the bright side, Vendetti adds, the shoulderbands are hermaphroditic, so it just takes any two to reproduce. If the habitat is still there and some snails are left, they can start to repopulate. However, if they’re all gone, recolonization is unlikely given snails’ limited ability to travel. And that would be a shame, she says: A high proportion of native Californian land mollusks are already threatened, and this would be another blow.

[theholmwoodfoundation]

THE HOLMWOOD FOUNDATION PILOT EPISODE CAST/CREW - PART TWO

BECKY WRIGHT - THRALLS/PHONE VOICE

Becky voices weird things. Her speciality is small children and demons, make of that what you will... She works across every medium. She played Nic Grundy in ‘The Archers’ for 11 years and continues to appear in regularly in radio dramas on the BBC. Recent credits include: ‘You Must Listen’, ‘Car Crash’, ‘Children of The Stones’, ‘The Battersea Poltergeist’ (Bafflegab/BBC), ‘Lola vs Powerman’, ‘Making Plans with Nigel’, ‘Mythos’ (Sweet Talk/BBC), ‘Barred’ (B7 Media/BBC), ‘Billie Homeless Dies at the End’ (Holy Mountain/BBC) & ‘The Waringham Chronicles’ (Audible Originals). For Big Finish she has appeared in many episodes of ‘Dr Who’, ‘Doom’s Day’, ‘Blake’s 7’, ‘Avalon’, ‘Unit: Nemesis’, ‘The Avengers’, ‘Star Cops’ and ‘Pathfinder’.ops and development sessions for countless new writing initiatives. She has narrated numerous audiobooks and amassed a vast and varied array of weird and wonderful dubbing, animation and computer game credits. On stage she has performed for The Being Human Festival, Nutkhut, The Birmingham Rep, Wolverhampton Arena Theatre, The Bike Shed in Exeter, Hampstead Theatre, The Pleasance and The Tricycle, amongst others. She has toured open air Shakespeare and performed a rep season in a lift shaft! She is very passionate about new work and has been involved in rehearsed readings, workshops and development sessions for countless new writing initiatives.

JESSICA CARROLL - NEWSREADER

Jessica trained at LAMDA. Most recently she played Disciple Z’rell in the multi-award-winning video game Baldur’s Gate 3. Other video games include Divinity: Original Sin 2, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, Elex, Spellforce 3, Dragon Quest XI, Unforeseen Incidents and Code 7. Jessica also voices Darcy the Driller, Riff and Jiff in the UK version of the Thomas & Friends cartoon.  Theatre includes Fence (Finborough); Fishskin Trousers (The Park Theatre, Finborough); The Broken Token (Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, Lakeside, William Andrews Clark - Los Angeles); Quirks (Southwark Playhouse); Old Bag (Theatre 503); Ghosts (Battersea Arts Centre); Hellcab (Old Red Lion); Last Seen (Almeida); The Woman of No Importance (Assembly Rooms Ludlow); Taking Steps (Assembly Rooms Ludlow); Daisy Pulls It Off (Lyric Hammersmith). Film and TV includes Hotel Inferno, Polar, The Space In-Between, David & Olivia. Radio includes Life Begins at Crawley and The Future of Radio (Radio 4); The British Are Coming and Liberation Is Not A Recognised Protocol (Apple). Jessica has an extensive voiceover career in commercials, dubbing and the TV and film ADR circuit where she can be heard screaming, crying, doing the news and squawking down police radios in everything from Happy Valley to Bridget Jones.

LUKE KONDOR - ROBERT SWALES

Luke Kondor is a writer, creator, and the voice behind The Other Stories podcast, which has amassed over 12 million downloads. He was recently commissioned by the George A. Romero Foundation to write a Night of the Living Dead audio drama. Currently, he lives and works from a dining room table in the middle of Sherwood Forest. For more, visit www.lukekondor.com.

PART ONE: HERE

PART THREE: HERE