As cities and highways have replaced timber and plain , Southern California ’s tidy sum lion have found themselves living on small disconnected “ islands ” of nature . severalize by dangerous interstate highway , mountain lion populations have become increasinglyisolated , causing transmitted diversity to diminish perilously . While that ’s pretty disturbing , scientists study Southern California ’s mountain social lion stumbled upon some near news this hebdomad : two healthy litters of hatful Panthera leo kitten go in the Santa Susana Mountains near Los Angeles .
National Geographicreports that biologist Jeffrey Sikich of the National Park Service ’s Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area see the kitten . He ’d been tail the park ’s grownup mountain lions — who assume GPS collar — and had notice that a male lion called P-38 had spent several days with a distaff lion call P-35 and then , a bit later , with a female Panthera leo known as P-39 . Since mountain lions are generally solitary fauna , Sikich began to inquire whether the lions had tangle . Four month afterward , he decide to check , and find the two litters of kittens .
The two bedding are big newsworthiness for scientist worried about the survival of the species . Sikich hopes the kitten might one day migrate to other home ground , increasing the coinage ’s transmitted variety — or at least teach scientists more about the coinage ’s natural migration substance abuse .
“ Our lions in the Santa Monica Mountains have some of the lowest familial diversity ever recorded outside the Florida panther , which nearly pop off extinct , ” Sikich toldNational Geographic . “ Monitoring these kitten , specially as they grow to [ young adulthood ] , is particularly valuable because it will serve us sympathize how they disperse throughout the domain . "
[ h / tNational Geographic ]
Banner Image Credit : National Geographic , YouTube
