Archive: Environment

The kittens, all females, were born to P-62 and are the first litter to be tagged in the hills north of the 101 freeway.

Trail cams placed by Robert Martinez catch a mother and three cubs in the mountains above Glendora.

The kittens were abandoned by their mother, P-42.

Even those Angelenos who like the promiscuous sprouting of non-native Mexican fan palms across the urban terrain will have to agree these are misplaced.

The two new cats are nearly grown males and face the threat of dominant males already in the Santa Monica Mountains along with the freeways, rat poison and other dangers.

The mother P-39 and both cubs died on the 118 in Santa Susana Pass since Dec. 3.

The male puma cub was struck on the 118 Freeway, which claimed P-39 last month.

A line of storms is coming toward California — just like they used to before the drought.

The mother of three mountain lion kittens was killed on the 118 freeway, the National Park Service confirmed.

Eliminating P-45 won't solve the problem of livestock and pets being killed, the National Park Service explains.

The mountain lion, one of the last adult males in the Santa Monicas, is blamed for killing more than 10 alpacas this past weekend.

Brown widow spiders from Africa are becoming the region's dominant venomous spider.

The LA Times covers the political rift at the commission like a huge outrage story. All other news: secondary.

California's Secretary of State put his family in a Burbank hotel about six weeks ago.

At the VA campus off Wilshire Boulevard, damaged birds and veterans are getting over their PTSD.

Civi lawsuit blames SoCal Gas for the three-month methane leak in Aliso Canyon

"If the wellhead fails," says a physical sciences professor, "It will be a horrible, horrible problem."

A male and a female were born in the western Santa Monicas in November or December.

Griffith Park mountain lion is over the mange and up to 123 pounds. Still no mate, however.

Cub of P-23 may be the only survivor from her spring litter. Watch the video and hear the young cougar squeak.

An untagged male cougar believed to be two to three years old was hit by traffic about 7:30 this morning.

He is three to four years old and the biggest Santa Monica Mountains lion that scientists have tracked since P-1. Now the question is: where did he come from?

Scientific American takes stock and concludes "there’s simply not enough land for each of the several males left to establish new territory and find mates."

This weekend's unseasonably high temperatures cinched a new record for 2015, breaking a mark that had stood for awhile.

If you see a yellow-bellied sea snake, take pictures and report the sighting but do not handle this highly venomous creature. OK?

Elevated bacteria counts plus the discovery of hypodermic needles and tampon applicators are tied to Hyperion's switch this week to a pipe dumping treated sewage just a mile offshore.

The contest for dominance between LA's two main squirrel species is one of my favorite local wildlife situations.

He was the first male lion known to have crossed freeways north out of the Santa Monica Mountains.

Female C-144 has cubs in the Westlake district. Male C-145 ranges around the Silver Lake area. There's a new urban wildlife blog too.

Remember the post in March about the discovery of 30 new fly species in LA yards?

An echo from the recent past at the scenic brine lake on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada range.

There's no real surprise here. Yes, the tar that washed up on local beaches came from 100 miles away.

Climate change, the drought and development pressure are all taking a toll on the symbolic succulents that grow only in the Mojave Desert.

Affected beaches range as far south as San Clemente. Heck of a coincidence if this is not found to be connected to the Santa Barbara County spill.

P-41, an adult male weighing 130 pounds, was tagged and released on May 7 in the mountain range above Burbank and Glendale.

How long P-22 was under the house in Los Feliz, the lion cubs who crossed the 101 freeway and how many pets have been found at lion kills in the Santa Monica Mountains.

This level of previously unknown biodiversity surprised scientists and makes them wonder: what other mystery species are living in our backyards?

It's just the second time researchers have spotted a lion successfully crossing the freeway — and the first to leave the Santa Monicas.

A very wet "atmospheric river event" is pointed at Northern California with an estimated arrival of later this week. Hey, we'll take it.

Neela Bannerjee is going to InsideClimate News, the nonprofit website that won a Pulitzer for national reporting in 2013.

Scientists think they know now what has killed millions of starfish along the Pacific coast, though they aren't so sure why. The destruction has been quite visible in tide pools.

Based on recent developments, some scientists think this event may rival the record El Niño event of 1997-1998. If that does happen, 2015 would almost be guaranteed to set a record for the warmest year on Earth, says a report.

Justin Edwards and his drone camera lingered above two humpback whales swimming in the channel off Maui on Valentine's Day.

Christensen gives LA credit as a good enviro partner in an essay in High Country News, and she's not impressed.

Coming up on three years since the catastrophic Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan, officials say flatly there is no threat to food or beachgoers. No matter what you might see on Facebook.

Remember those disturbing photos last year of mysteriously malnourished sea lions at rescue centers? An alarming drop in sardine schools may be a big reason. There are all kinds of reasons to worry about the sardines, it turns out.

State hydrologists report today they found more bare ground than snow in the first Sierra snowpack measurement of the year. That's bad. Here's why no storms are getting through to California.

The key words here are rotting balls of fish flesh and corpse wax. Bon appetit.

Mountain lion photographed during the day in the San Gabriels. More on Griffith Park's P-22. And it's tarantula mating season, so step lively.

A national search led the Heal the Bay board to Ruskin Hartley, a veteran environmentalist who most recently headed the Save the Redwoods League. He’s a Cambridge-educated geographer by training.

Just because LA is not a desert doesn't mean it's not getting hotter. Tim Rutten surveys the climate picture in his weekend column.

Heal the Bay has been hearing from so many people concerned about reports of radioactive contamination in the ocean here that it posted some questions and answers.

The sad sight of a 42-foot fin whale washing up alive on Stinson Beach in Marin County, then dying in front of onlookers, has turned into a rare opportunity for scientists. They don't usually get to study the endangered fin whales in this way.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District has apparently decided that banning fires for health reasons at Dockweiler State Beach — under the LAX takeoff path and downwind from the massive Hyperion sewage treatment plant — didn't make sense scientifically or environmentally. So a revised proposal for fire rings on beaches will be released today that incorporates "better and more information than we had two months ago."

The Kickstarter campaign to support the hidden beach access app that grew out of an LA Observed series runs only until May 30 — that's Thursday. The LA Times featured Jenny Price in today's Column One feature.

In the new interactive map of pollution effects analyzed by zip code, the darker colors represent the worst cases. Notice the line of dark blue running the whole length of the Central Valley. America's breadbasket, as they say.

People up in the Eastern Sierra noticed recently that the sky was kind of hazy, and the usual culprit — dust from the Owens Lake bed that the Los Angeles DWP dried up years ago — could not be blamed. Turns out the haze was caused by suspended particles from "a massive dust event last week in the Gobi Desert" that rode the jet stream across the Pacific.

The ambitious Megacities Carbon Project aims to monitor the greenhouse gas emissions of "the largest human contributors to climate change: megacities." They are starting with Los Angeles and Paris, and have sensing stations planted across the LA basin.

Sick and hungry sea lion pups are showing up almost daily at the Marine Mammal Care Center in San Pedro — a dozen on Saturday alone. What is afflicting the young sea lions is unknown.

A portion of the Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve was cleared of trees and brush in an abrupt move by the Army Corps of Engineers that caught the area's birdwatchers and volunteer caretakers by surprise. Reacting to an outrcy, the Army Corps halted work for more discussion.

Ken Burns' latest documentary debuted on PBS on Sunday night. The great migration to California begins in tonight's second part. Watch a preview.

UCLA researchers say in a study today that the benefits began as soon as the freeway closed, and extended for miles around. Since traffic fell everywhere in Southern California, the whole region felt an effect — for a couple of days.

Heal the Bay's 23rd yearly cleanup of the coastal watershed on Saturday yielded nearly 20 tons of junk that shouldn't be in the ocean. Oddities this year included the body of a rooster with its head cut off, found at Santa Monica Beach, and a rifle barrel.

Southern California's air quality agency has spoken: the rotten egg smell that wafted over much of the region starting Sunday has been traced to the distant desert lake.

British readers of The Guardian got a glimpse the other day of a Los Angeles they may not have known about. West Coast correspondent Rory Carroll became the latest journalist to take one of activist George Wolfe's kayak tours on the short stretch of unpaved Los Angeles River in the Sepulveda Dam Basin. Carroll makes some cogent observations, but first he has to find the place.

Not the best weekend to unveil a major new project, given the mass shooting rampage in Aurora, Colorado, but the LA Times is committed now. The paper has unveiled the promotion campaign for a five-part series on global population growth, by the journalists who produced the Pulitzer-winning Altered Oceans series awhile back.

State wildlife biologist Richard Shinn snapped spotted OR7 on Tuesday in California's Modoc County and snapped the first known color photo of the male gray wolf that crossed over from Oregon in December, becoming California's only documented free-ranging wolf since the 1920s. "He appeared very healthy," said a state wildlife specialist.

A piece in Orange Coast magazine focuses on the dilemma in OC's Newport Harbor where the good Republicans of Balboa Island either believe the Pacific is rising and need an $80 million seawall — and soon — or they believe Rush Limbaugh and friends that global warming is a creation of the loony left.

Editor Rob Eshman calls the Encino State Historic Park threatened with closure his personal retreat growing up in the neighborhood.

The 23-year veteran of Heal the Bay and the group's president for many years is stepping down to become associate director of UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. He will stay on the group's board.

The pair of 5-pound cougars discovered beneath a parked car on Orange Grove Avenue apparently had not eaten in two weeks. They were taken to the California Wildlife Center in...

L.A. Creek Freak pretty much destroys the official notion that an oily sheen on the runoff in Ballona Creek comes from overflows at the La Brea Tar Pits — or is even a problem at all worth spending millions to fix.

He will spend a year as advisor to the Sierra Club and Michael Brune will be the top officer.

Two SoCal nonprofits that campaign against plastic pollution are leading an expedition to the debris area, but it will cost you $13,000.

Chip Jacobs, the co-author of "Smogtown: the Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles," observes on Burke being partners with the world's worst air polluter.

A male lion known as P-18 left his mother's home range in Malibu Creek State Park earlier this summer and was struck by a hit-and-run driver near Getty Center.

Those Paso Robles settling ponds look like something from before the dawn of sewage treatment, says Mark Gold of Heal the Bay.

His brother Mark, the head of Heal the Bay, says that he asked the LA Weekly food writer for this weekend's op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times. Getting it done was more of a struggle.

They argue that the changes will reduce the financial incentives for solar power by up to 40 percent.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gets third billing on the list of signators to an ad in the New York Times calling on President Obama to extend a ban on uranium mining claims near the Grand Canyon.

The artificial light we throw skyward in the city at night feeds chemical reactions that add to the haze of air pollution.

Heal the Bay put out the call for help with the massive die-off of sardines and other fish inside King Harbor in Redondo Beach.

I don't know if folks will be as bemused in Redondo Beach, but the LAT's holy cow approach to the fish die-off works for me.

Thousands, perhaps millions, of dead anchovies are floating this morning in King Harbor in Redondo Beach.

The animated movie is set in the fictional town of Dirt. There's a character, a desert tortoise named Mayor, who dreams of imported water turning Dirt into a green paradise.

Mark Frauenfelder went for a fun Saturday walking tour of the old Hollywoodland development in Beachwood Canyon.

Four protesters who tried unsuccessfully to block destruction of dozens of trees in the Arcadia Woodlands for a sediment-dumping project were arrested for trespassing this evening.

Did this month's revelations of an arsenic-eating microbe in the mud at Mono Lake really upend our basic understanding of how life works? Not so much, a growing chorus of scientists is saying.

I noticed a lot of yellow and red trees from a Wilshire high-rise this morning, and I read now from Roy Rivenburg at the Times' gardening blog that it's more or less official.

A thousand rats removed from a home in Los Angeles for the reality TV show "Hoarders" arrived by 18-wheeled truck Saturday in San Jose.

Journalist and blogger about gardens and water policy Emily Green writes about leaving her garden in the city for a new challenge in the foothills, "half the house and twice the land...and has sandy loam instead of clay."

Answer: in Santa Clarita at the Gibbon Conservation Center in Bouquet Canyon.

Poet and L.A. River advocate Lewis MacAdams' dream of a park on the Union Pacific Piggyback Yard made a splash in today's New York Times real estate pages.

Sumar, one of seven orcas at Sea World San Diego, died this afternoon after appearing lethargic yesterday and being given antibiotics.

The bill, carried in the Senate by Gil Cedillo of Los Angeles, received just 14 votes on the final night of the legislative session.

When Judy Flagg of Irvine looked at her photos of a sunset from Laguna Beach, she saw a pair of small green flashes just above the sun on the horizon. Mystery solved, via the Orange County Register's science blog.

Every summer the boat captains say this is the year the blues are amazing. But this year the numbers are staggering, says outdoors writer Pete Thomas.

A new study out of JPL concludes that the El Niño readings in the western Pacific have become more intense and moved westward — over time, not currently.

Wired magazine culled some photos of Los Angeles smog from the L.A. Times archive at UCLA. Monday was the 67th anniversary of the infamous really, really black day when people looked around said dang, we have an air pollution problem here.

Here is Zocalo's report on the panel we told you about, discussing the future of seafood.

Jonathan Gold — the enthusiastic fish gourmand — and his brother Mark Gold — the head of Heal the Bay — will be on the same panel tomorrow night talking about the sustainability of seafood. It's sort of a rermatch, if you remember their 2008 blog throwdown.

Three new mountain lion kittens are being tracked in the Santa Monica Mountains.

When was the last time a fashion spread in the L.A. Times got this much attention? Kobe as ET.

KTLA reporter Eric Spillman was riding his mountain bike in Sullivan Canyon when he saw what looked like a branch laying across the trail. It was no branch.

Today's LA Observed piece during "All Things Considered" on KCRW talks about the L.A. story of this week that had a little of everything. That would be Jennifer Steinhauer's New...

Heal the Bay president Mark Gold is trying to get the whale-serving restaurant closed — but this time doesn't have to worry about his brother, Jonathan Gold the food writer.

At least 250 brown pelicans have been treated over the past month at the International Bird Rescue Research Center in San Pedro, according to the center.

Those black bears that keep coming down into the foothills of Monrovia and Duarte may not be native to the San Gabriel Mountains at all, but descendants of 33 "problem" bears relocated from the Sierra Nevada.

Heal the Bay's Mark Gold proposes three green initiatives the mayor should focus on in the remainder of his term.

OK, Mark Gold of Heal the Bay, how do you really feel about the owner of Malibu's Paradise Cove getting a big break from the state's clean water regulators, despite...

The feds have formally removed pelicans from the endangered species list, hailing the bird's recovery as evidence that the species law works. Brown pelicans were declared endangered in 1970, when...

Region 9 of the Environmental Protection Agency covers California, Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, the Pacific Islands, and over 140 tribal nations. The new administrator is Jared Blumenfeld, director of the San...

John Stodder grabbed this image of the smoke that belched from the Redondo Beach power plant near King Harbor as generators cranked up to meet today's demand for air conditioning....

New York officials think they have figured out the source of the Westside maple syrup aroma that, as one writer put it back in 2006, "spread faster than warm Aunt...

Heal the Bay says its staff spent the past year reviewing eight years of records on wastewater discharges kept by the Los Angeles Water Quality Control Board. The findings: "A...

Kevin Fry, the president of Scenic America, was interviewed in The Planning Report about the Los Angeles billboard situation. Excerpt: The city of Los Angeles has surrendered its built environment...

The current president of Heal the Bay posted a personal tribute to the death earlier today of the organization's founder and inspiration. Mark Gold calls his blog post "the passing...

Heal the Bay founder Dorothy Green has passed away, according to a release from Mayor Antonio Villarigosa's office. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa issued the following statement today on the passing of...

"Smogtown: the Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles" will be published Thursday by The Overlook Press/Penguin U.S.A. The book, by Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly, looks like it...

Last year's unusually horrible air pollution didn't repeat this smog season because of the mild summer and the October rains. The air was the cleanest it has been in 25...

Professor emeritus Ralph Shaffer has been trying without success to get Times writers to stop referring to Los Angeles as a desert, climate-wise. Simply put, he says it rains too much for the coastal plain to qualify as a desert.