Agency Puts Bite on Dogs in Wilacre Park

It looked just like any other hot, sleepy Saturday at Wilacre Park. But for some of the park’s most faithful users, everything had changed.

For the first time in eight years, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy on Saturday began enforcing a leash law in Wilacre Park--a steep patch of brush and dry weeds in the heart of Studio City.

And as far as Marco Ahumada was concerned, they might as well have bulldozed it.

Hardly had he and his two Siberian husky pups entered the gate when a passing hiker pointed out the new signs. Ahumada glumly snapped the leashes back on Precious and Jou Jou. But he turned back after only a few minutes on the trail.

He won’t be coming back much any more: “It’s the canyons for me from now on,” he said, speaking of deserted stretches of the San Gabriel Mountains where his dogs can run unchecked.

“It’s been like this my whole life,” Ahumada said. “Areas are always being closed off for one thing or another. You can’t find anyplace to do things and enjoy things.”

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In recent months, the lifting of the longtime leash-law exemption at Wilacre had been the source of bitter battles between pro- and anti-leash forces.

The conservancy held that the leash law was needed due to dog bites and damage to wildlife habitat caused by canines.

Many park-goers applauded the move. But dog owners fought passionately to keep what for many was a hound haven, one of the few areas left in L.A. where dogs could run free in a natural setting.

What followed were protests, packed meetings, raised voices and threats of lawsuits.

There were reports of anonymous letters, cries of elitism and heated talk “that got personal, put neighbor against neighbor,” said John Diaz, chief of land acquisitions for the conservancy.

Emotions ran so high that at one point conservancy officials called in a professional mediator to try to hammer out a compromise--all to no avail.

“It was clear there were two pretty divergent points of view,” said Sharon Mayer, chief field deputy for City Councilman Mike Feuer, who help arrange talks. “The conservancy decided it had no choice” but to enforce the leash law, she said.

Dogs are required to be on leashes throughout the city and in all other conservancy areas, except in two city-run dog exercise areas. One is in nearby Laurel Canyon Park, and the other is at the Silver Lake Recreation Center. A third is under construction in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area.

An exemption had been granted, however, at Wilacre because of its popularity among dog owners, Diaz said. The problem came as the park became more popular, and conflicts between hikers and dogs increased, he said.

“The complaints have been building over the last two years,” Diaz said. The conservancy has received six reports of serious dog bites in the past five months, and numerous complaints about dog droppings on trails.

“It became a public safety issue. We had threats of lawsuits, and we needed to act,” he said.

Dog owners such as Susan Tyler, a neighbor of the park, countered that people have been running their dogs without leashes in the park for years with no problems.

So many people and dogs have used the park over time that even if the reports of bites are true, she said, “it’s not bad odds.”

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Saturday was the first day the leash law was enforced, and while some activists had predicted the day would spark mass civil disobedience, there was hardly anything stirring in the midday heat.

Just a few disappointed dogs such as Ahumada’s, panting on the ends of leashes.

There was also the occasional rebel, such as Frannie Beers of Studio City, who gave an exaggerated shrug when told of the new rules.

“I don’t care if they fine me. I’m never putting him on a leash,” she said as her tall retriever/briard mix bounded freely up the trail.

Along the trial there were only a few joggers and hikers, many of whom expressed relief that dogs would now have to be leashed.

“It’s easier,” said Nataliya Bykova of Tarzana, walking with a friend. “I love dogs, they are better than people sometimes, but I am terribly afraid of them.

“I am sorry for the dogs, though.”