When Mountain Lions Are Neighbors

“This delightful book details our ever-evolving relationship with Earth’s wildest creatures, promising that peaceful coexistence is possible.” —Jennifer Holland, New York Times–bestselling author Wildness beats in the heart of California’s urban areas. In Los Angeles, residents are rallying to build one of the largest wildlife crossings in the world because of the plight of one lonely mountain lion named P-22. Porpoises cavort in San Francisco Bay again because of a grassroots effort to clean up a waterway that was once a toxic mess. And on the Facebook campus in Silicon Valley, Mark Zuckerberg and his staff have provided a home for an endearing family of wild gray foxes. Through actions as sweeping as citizen science initiatives and as instantaneous as social media posts, a movement of diverse individuals and communities is taking action to recast nature as an integral part of our everyday lives. When Mountain Lions Are Neighbors explores this evolving dynamic between humans and animals, including remarkable stories like the journey of the wolf OR-7 and how Californians are welcoming wolves back to the state after a ninety-year absence, how park staff and millions of visitors rallied to keep Yosemite’s famed bears wild, and many more tales from across the state. Written by Beth Pratt-Bergstrom of the National Wildlife Federation, these inspiring stories celebrate a new paradigm for wildlife conservation: coexistence. “A contemporary and exciting view of conservation that we all can celebrate.” —Ed Begley Jr. “When Mountain Lions Are Neighbors focuses on a serious problem by presenting meaningful solutions, and is as enjoyable to read as it is informative.” —Foreword Reviews

Mountain lions live like fugitives. These predators usually keep to themselves and try to stay in hiding. Their main goal is to keep their neighbors unsuspecting. Because the time always comes for these stealthy stalkers to pounce! In this book, kids will track an animal with many aliases.

Discover the amazing true story of P-22, the wild cougar living in Los Angeles, in this inspiring picture book. P-22, the famed “Hollywood Cougar,” was born in a national park near Los Angeles, California. When it was time for him to leave home and stake a claim to his own territory, he embarked on a perilous journey—somehow crossing sixteen lanes of the world’s worst traffic—to make his home in LA’s Griffith Park, overlooking the famed Hollywood sign. But Griffith Park is a tiny territory for a mountain lion, and P-22’s life has been filled with struggles. Residents of Los Angeles have embraced this brave cougar as their own and, along with the scientists monitoring P-22, raised money to build a wildlife bridge across Highway 101 to help cougars and other wildlife safely expand their territories and build new homes—ensuring their survival for years to come.

David Raber first saw Cougar when the mountain lion was an eight-week-old kitten on display, locked up in a toaster-size cage and poked and prodded by a crowd. Raber took him out, held him, and just couldn't put him back. He made four promises that day: one, no more petting, out of respect for Cougar; two, no more cages; three, he would educate the public against exotic-animal ownership; and four, he would make Cougar happy, and this has become a twenty-four-hours-a-day learning process and a duty that he adores. Being the only large cat in the country who is federally licensed without a cage, Cougar strides down streets, roams hotel lobbies, enters competitions, and even films a Puma Sportswear ad with several Olympic gold medalists. As the official poster model for the Iams pet food company, Cougar has been seen by millions. Together, Raber and Cougar are a team, and in this book, Raber recounts their many adventures: He teaches Cougar about elevators, switches, and doors while saving him from bullets and speeding cars; and Cougar teaches him about deer, opossum, and squirrels while rescuing him from alligators and raging rivers. In helping each other, they share their weaknesses and become strong. Beautiful and touching, entertaining and provocative, Through Cougar's Eyes is a love story that dispels the prevalent and presumptuous thinking that mankind and wildlife can't get along. This true story depicts sacrifice and dedication with a message: relating well to animals can set you both free.

The West is changing, and these days natives and newcomers alike need a lot of basic information to cope with issues that arise from increasing population and changing land-use regulations on both the local and federal levels.The Good Neighbor Guidebook for Colorado is an essential resource for anyone living in Colorado today. Arising from a seminar organized by the authors in Durango, this valuable collection features articles by some thirty-five expert contributors, ranging from builders to lawyers to land-use specialists and more. The book focuses on land stewardship; basics of Colorado law; working with local governments; issues of recreation, public lands, and tribal lands; protecting our western heritage; and avoiding and resolving problems.In Colorado, at the turn of the 21st century, the trend seems to be away from traditional, strong, relationship-based communities toward pseudo-communities that often are a collection of short-term alliances to fight common enemies. The re-establishment of strong neighbor relationships, with appreciation not only for shared values but for diverse opinions, can reverse this unfortunate trend. The Good Neighbor Guidebook for Colorado offers every citizen the tools to build better communities.

This book presents the author's thirty years of practical experience managing long-term stream and river restoration projects in heavily degraded urban environments. Riley provides a level of detail only a hands-on design practitioner would know, including insights on project design, institutional and social context of successful projects, and how to avoid costly and time-consuming mistakes.

A wildlife students personal research on mountain lion ecology that explores their behavior, relationship between humans and mountain lions coexisting within a ranching and agriculturally based community, and to defi ne the impacts from obstacles they face for the purpose of their conservation. The research for this project was done in a small eastern part of the central San Joaquin Valley, of California.

An ALA Notable book An Orbis Pictus Recommended title When Heather L. Montgomery sees a rattlesnake flattened on the side of the road, her first instinct is to pick it up and dissect it--she's always wanted to see how a snake's fangs retract when they close their mouths, and it's not exactly safe to poke around in a live reptile's mouth. A wildlife researcher with a special penchant for the animals that litter the roadways, Heather isn't satisfied with dissecting just one snake. Her fascination with roadkill sets her off on a journey from her own backyard and the roadways of the American South to scientists and kids in labs and homes across the globe. From biologists who use the corpses of Tasmanian devils to investigate cures for a contagious cancer, to a scientist who discovered a whole new species of bird from a single wing left behind, to a boy rebuilding animal bodies from the bones up, to a restaurant that serves up animal remnants, Heather discovers that death is just the beginning for these creatures. This engaging narrative nonfiction is an eye-opening and irreverent look at the dead and dying animals that we pass by without a second thought--as well as a fascinating insight to the scientific research process.