Results tagged “nationalparkservice”

       

We're big fans of looking at nature photos taken in and around Los Angeles. We've seen bobcats, mountain lions, waterfalls, scenic views through the lenses of photographers who really haven't traveled that far, sometimes only minutes from Hollywood. It's just some of the best delicious eye candy of Southern California in our opinion.

       

About 30 people gathered yesterday to assist the National Park Service and other regional parks agencies in developing a new interagency headquarters, centrally located in the Santa Monica Mountains at King Gillette Ranch, just outside of Calabasas.

In 2007, a collaboration of parks agencies--local to federal--purchased King Gillette Ranch (if you're thinking shaving razors, you're on the right track) with plans to open an interagency visitor center for for the Santa Monica Mountains. Currently, the National Park Service, which manages the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, has a visitor center and headquarters in Thousand Oaks, far off the beaten path for many in the immediate Los Angeles region. King Gillette Ranch sits in the heart of the mountain rage, off Las Virgenes Road between Calabasas and Malibu, which is much closer to trails and nature than the suburban mall and sprawl setting of Thousand Oaks.

   

In less than a months time, rangers with the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area area have captured and placed a GPS collar on a second mountain lion. Found Saturday morning in a trap set by National Park Service scientists around Malibu Springs, the approximately 2-year-old lion became the 14th to wear a tracking collar around its neck. At the end of July, a female with a similar age was found and collared. P14 and P13, respectively, have blood samples being analyzed by researchers at UCLA to determine connections, if any, to other lions studied in mountains.

Two wildfires north of the Los Angeles region had prompted partial closures within National Park units over the weekend, but today one opened as the other continues to see dangers. The Gloria Fire has been after burning some 6,400 acres northeast of Soledad and near Pinnacles National Monument. Officials with the National Park Service closed portions of the monument on Friday and today announced the reopening. “Pinnacles has been working closely with Cal Fire and with the fire completely contained and all evacuations and road closures lifted, I am comfortable lifting the park’s temporary closures,” Superintendent Eric Brunnemann explained in a statement.

Well, she may not be the newest or youngest in our local mountains, but she is the most recent cougar to be trapped, tagged and released by the National Park Service, who has been conducting a study with them over the past seven years. P-13 (they are named in the order they are caught) was captured on July 31st in the Hidden Valley region, which is the northwest sector of the mountains south of Newbury Park. She is now the third active GPS collar being tracked.

   

A Grand Canyon-bound tour helicopter from Las Vegas made an emergency landing at Lake Mead yesterday after a large bird crashing into the windshield. The pilot suffered a face laceration, but there no injuries to the six tourists from London aboard. The Cormorant bird strike happened around 5:40 p.m. as the helicopter was over the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

A 50-year-old man who jumped into Lake Mohave on Sunday is presumed drowned after rescue personnel suspended a search as night fell. The Lawndale man, whose identity has not been released, jumped into the water without a life jacket to retrieve a lost hat. "He went underwater and has not been seen since," according to a statement from the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, a popular destination for Southern Californians. Two Californians have died already this year at the area managed by the National Park Service. On Memorial weekend, an El Monte man drowned followed by another California man in late June.

When a bald eagles disappear from the Channel Islands allowing room for Golden Eagles, who eat really cute little foxes, to take over, everyone freaks out (got 20 mins? Watch this amazing short documentary). When a pretty flowering Spanish Broom begins to grow, not many take notice despite it being one of the top invasive and harmful-to-the-ecosystem plants found in the Santa Monica Mountains. Now, that might start to change.

The National Park Service does not want to take control of state parks, but will take six of them, including the nearby Point Mugu State Park, if Gov. Schwarzenegger's proposal to close 80%, or 220, of them goes through under a Federal land transfer agreement. If parks do close, they will stay open through at least labor day. "It's important to note that nobody is proposing to close these parks permanently. This is a temporary suspension until budget times are better," a State Parks spokesman told the LA Times. "We have no intention of giving them away or selling them. There's an interest in finding a way to preserve and protect them. It could be temporary federal control. We would hope they can come back to state parks." A proposal to pay for state parks via an annual $15 fee on vehicle registrations will be vetoed by Schwarzenegger if it hits his desk. Last month, LAist exposed a letter--currently making the media rounds--from the National Park Service to the Governor alerting him to the legal consequences.

Following up on an LAist story published last week, the San Jose Mercury News spoke to Governor Schwarzenegger's office about a letter from the National Park Service to the state about closing parks. In that letter, Pacific regional director Jon Jarvis, informed Schwarzenegger that closing some 69 parks that received funding in the past jeopardized all future funding and that a handful of parks deeded to the state from the feds, including part of Point Mugu near Malibu, could be repossessed.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget-saving threat to close 80% of state parks for two years has the federal government raising a red flag. Numerous parks, including a handful local to Los Angeles, are under stipulations to stay open to the public because the land was fully or partially federally funded or transferred to the state from federal ownership.

If you didn't know, Los Angeles is placed within quite a rare landscape, biologically speaking that is. There are only six Mediterranean Biomes in the world making up 2% of the world's land area and Southern California's coast and surrounding mountains are part of that. This is one of the reasons why congress in 1978 decided bring in the Santa Monica Mountains and the five northern Channel Islands into the Department of the Interior under the National Park Service. They were named the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and Channel Islands National Park.

Since 2002, the National Park Service has been tracking Mountain Lions in the Santa Monica Mountains, studying their movements, pinpointing their ranges and observing how human development impacts their population. Twelve have been tracked in that time with some remarkable finds.

After hearing about the unfortunate death of a mountain lion on the 5 Freeway this morning, we found another puma photo via the National Park Service. This time, it's good news. She, named P6, was tagged awhile ago by the Service, but her radio collar stopped working two years ago.

Last week, a team of National Park Service botanist were surveying for sensitive and endagnered species near Sandstone Peak, the tallest point in the Santa Monica Mountains, when they came upon something out of place. It was whisker brush (Leptosiphon ciliatus), which is typically found at higher elevations in the Sierras, not in Southern California, even around 3,000 feet elevation.

       

"We're not a travelogue, we're not a nature fim, we're not a recomendation on which lodge to stay in. It's the story how this place got started," a zealous Ken Burns said of his upcoming twelve hour documentary on the National Parks. He and his crew have spent what many dream about: six years of traveling the country from National Park to National Park exploring some of the country's most beautiful and historically and culturally significant places.

When National Park Service employees in Thousand Oaks yesterday morning checked on the mountain lions they monitor via GPS in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, they discovered that one of them visited an unusual location. On Wednesday night, one was in the vicinity of the 405 Freeway and the Skirball Museum.

For twenty-four hours starting tomorrow at noon, 120 scientists, 1,400 LAUSD students and community members will embark on the 2nd National Geographic BioBlitz in the Santa Monica Mountains Recreation Area (though some say it's essentially a National Park), which stretches from the ocean to Cahuenga Pass at the 101 Freeway. Together they will comb the area, as well as Griffith Park, observing and recording as many plant and animal species as possible in 24 hours. Think of it as part scientific endeavor, part festival and part outdoor classroom.

Despite the risk of building a home, selling a home and moving into a home in a high risk fire zone, companies, homeowners and governments still find it acceptable finds the LA Times today. "This is a land rush into danger," said Roger Kennedy, former director of the National Park Service and author of a recent book on wildfires. "A land rush by people who do not understand what they are doing and who...

Yup, it's what you were thinking -- razors. The baron of a clean shave himself, King Camp Gillette, bought this land off of the now Mulholland Hwy in 1926 after making a fortune in the early 1900s off of the safety razor. Today, his home and ranch are open to the public for the first time. Near the entrance of Malibu Creek State Park, the 588-acre park was collaboratively purchased for $35 million by...

Horse racing season has just begun at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, and from now until April 22, SoCal hopefuls (with $5 for general admission fee) can step up to tellered windows and pick the ponies to win, place or show.