A man was walking two dogs in early November in the Hollywood Hills when a mountain lion approached him from behind and snatched one of his dogs.
The dreadful scene unfolded in the dark and most likely involved P-22, the famed 11-year-old male cougar known for living in the Griffith Park area, and making occasional visits to the Hollywood Hills. A small Chihuahua dog named Piper was killed on the spot.
The encounter, which was captured on camera, sparked a debate over whether it’s safe to encourage a wildlife movement in urban neighborhoods.
“The best thing for wildlife is to keep it away from people and vice versa,” said Christopher Thornberg, founder of Beacon Economics, who has lived in Bel Air for about 17 years in an area included in a proposed Los Angeles wildlife district.
The hilly district would be bound by Ventura Boulevard to the north, Sunset Boulevard to the south, the 101 Freeway to the east and the 405 Freeway to the west, encircling neighborhoods in the Hollywood Hills, and parts of Bel Air, Sherman Oaks and Studio City.
Spotting a cougar in an urban Los Angeles neighborhood is rare, but some worry that those encounters would become more frequent if the city moves forward with an ordinance to protect wildlife and increase habitat connectivity in the Hollywood Hills and Santa Monica Mountains, which have different names but are the same mountain range.
An ordinance spearheaded by Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz, who introduced the original motion in 2014 to balance wildlife habitat and private property development, argues that the proposed wildlife district would save mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, deer and other animals threatened by freeways and other developments that are slicing up and destroying their habitats. In the last eight years, Koretz’s office worked with the city planning department, scientists and biologists to refine the draft of the ordinance.
Under the proposal, new homes built within the wildlife district would follow a set of rules, including the height and size of homes, outdoor lighting, landscaping and fencing.
After receiving feedback from residents, city planners recently released a revised draft ordinance, removing commercial and multi-family properties at the edges of the proposed district’s boundaries, and communities that overlapped with the Ventura Specific Plan, a 17-mile-long corridor that includes more than 1,200 acres, and regulates more than 4,300 individual parcels in Woodland Hills, Encino, Tarzana and Studio City.
The draft had initially proposed to limit the footprint taken up by homes on parcels within the district to 50% of the lot size, but then exempted small single-family homes. The ordinance would require that newly installed fencing would be wildlife-friendly, banning spikes, sharp glass and other materials that could potentially harm animals.
Many supporters of the ordinance sent letters to the city’s planning commission in recent months, defending the proposed district.
One of them is Arthur Alexander from Burbank who wrote that the “adoption and implementation of the Wildlife Protection Ordinance is a critical first step toward maintaining biodiversity during our unprecedented climate crisis.”
Alison Simard, co-founder of the advocacy group Citizens for LA Wildlife, or CLAW, and communications director for Councilmember Koretz, said she was saddened when she heard about the incident in which a pet was killed by a big cat.
Simard said it was a reminder that having “functioning wildlife corridors was the key to protecting our open space and habitats. … The more we build and block (wildlife) connectivity, the more we push (wild animals) into the residential areas — and the reality is that our mountain lion population is threatened.”
But opponents say it would bring wild animals into residential neighborhoods and increase the risk of dangerous encounters.
Thornberg said he worried the restrictions would get in the way of rebuilding his house on a 17,000-square-foot lot that he purchased about 17 years ago with the intention to invest in it one day.
“It puts an insane amount of restrictions on me and my old and crappy house,” he said, adding that the ordinance tells residents what “they can’t do to their homes.”
He said he worried that discussions about the ordinance took place “behind closed doors in different parts of City Hall and they have deliberately kept it out of our vision.” He claimed that proponents “want to depopulate (his area) when we have a housing shortage and a homeless crisis.”
In recent months, Angelenos sent dozens of letters to city planners opposing or backing the ordinance. Among those opposing it was actress Gwyneth Paltrow who wrote that when the “proposed Wildlife ordinance is applied to fully developed neighborhoods such as those found in the (Wildlife District), it simply doesn’t work.”
The ordinance will be considered by the Los Angeles City Planning Commission on Dec. 6. If approved, it will go to the L.A. City Council for a final vote.
Paul Edelman, deputy director of natural resources and planning at the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, said that the Hollywood Hills attack happened in the dark and involved a small dog that resembled natural prey for P-22, who is getting old.
Edelman said he didn’t believe the incident would impact the passage of the ordinance.
“The force to keep nature in our city is much stronger than people realized, and one incident like that is not going to derail that force,” he said.