We must protect what’s left

VIC LEIPZIG AND LOU MURRAY

The world is constantly changing.

With changes in climate come changes in communities of plants,

which are the habitats of animals. With natural changes in habitat,

come changes in the kinds and numbers of animals that live there.

But the biggest change for plant and animal life occurs when

humans enter the scene.

For more than 10,000 years, small numbers of humans lived in the

Huntington Beach area. They gathered plants and shellfish, and they

hunted birds and mammals for food, feathers and fur.

We don’t know for certain what changes they caused directly

because the last Ice Age ended at about the same time as the arrival

of those first Paleo-Indians. What we do know is that the animal life

that used to live in this area changed drastically about 10,000 to

12,000 years ago. Many species went extinct, possibly due to climate

change, the arrival of early humans, or both.

With a climate change of only a few degrees, our coastal area lost

the grasslands that had supported herds of herbivores and their

predators. Mammoths became extinct, along with dwarf antelope,

saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, giant sloths, huge eagles and many

other mammals and birds that used to live right here in Huntington

Beach.

Ancient bison died out here, but they lived on in other areas and

evolved into modern plains and woods bison. In fact, bison survived

in northeastern California until the early part of the 1800s. They

were hunted to extinction there when Indian tribes acquired horses.

This type of local extinction is called extirpation.

Three other mammal species have been extirpated from California in

recent historic times. Ironically, one of them is our state animal,

the grizzly bear. Until the 1850s to ‘60s, they were plentiful

throughout California, including the Santa Ana Mountains of Orange

County.

Grizzlies were fearless hunters and didn’t coexist peacefully with

humans. The grizzly’s days in California were numbered once the area

changed from wildlife habitat to cattle ranches. One reason is that

early Mexican vaqueros on horseback hunted down and lassoed

grizzlies. For entertainment, they threw the bears into pits with

dogs for battles to the death.

American ranchers and hunters finished off the grizzlies. The last

grizzly in California was killed in the 1920s. The California

Department of Fish and Game introduced the relatively more docile

black bear, and that is the only bear that now lives in California.

Two other mammals that were extirpated in California were the wolf

and jaguar. Wolves were concentrated in the Central Valley and on the

eastern edge of the state. Trappers and hunters killed off the wolves

for the benefit of cattlemen. They killed the last wolf in California

in 1924 near Tule Lake.

Surprisingly, jaguars also roamed California. These huge cats

could bring down a cow or horse, but unlike grizzlies, they avoided

people. The last known jaguar was killed in Palm Springs in 1860.

The changes in this area from wilderness to ranching to farming

and then to urban development have drastically changed the type of

wildlife that lives here. If we look around here today, we certainly

don’t see herds of bison. We don’t see the deer, bobcats or

long-tailed weasels that early settlers reported, either.

There probably hasn’t been a deer or bobcat in Huntington Beach in

many decades, although they still live in wilderness areas such as

Caspers Park.

Weasels are elusive and haven’t been reported here since the

1970s. However, a weasel was recently live-trapped at San Joaquin

Marsh in Irvine, so some do still live in coastal Orange County.

Mammals still here tend to be those that can live in the remaining

fragmented wild areas of parks surrounded by an urban environment.

Those are generally smaller animals. Wolves and grizzlies are gone,

but raccoons, cottontails, California ground squirrels and coyotes

thrive here.

Despite all of these losses, some interesting wildlife remains.

Insectivores called ornate shrews live in the wild at Shipley Nature

Center. Their noses have odd growths, which is the only thing ornate

about them. They are the size of a mouse, are a dull dark brown, and

eat soil-dwelling insects. Yearling shrews mate in February, raise

their litters of three to five young, and die in early summer. With

such a fragile life cycle, it’s a wonder they’ve managed to survive.

Laura Bandy, the education director of the Bolsa Chica

Conservancy, recently showed us a nest of deermice that lived in the

tool shed at the Bolsa Chica Conservancy. Deermice are cute critters

with tiny round bodies covered with brown fur on top and white fur on

the belly and feet. They have disproportionately huge ears, big black

eyes and very long tails, each with a black stripe of short fur

running along the top.

Changes in climate and land use have resulted in many changes in

our local animal population over time. Introduction of nonnative

plants and animals has further impacted our local flora and fauna.

Most native wildlife is now gone from Huntington Beach. Although the

mammal species that remain tend to be small, they are still important

in the food chain.

It is imperative we protect the few remaining wild fringes in our

parks, flood control channels and schoolyards, and restore as much

habitat as possible to enhance the chances of survival for the

wildlife still living here.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at o7vicleipzig@aol.com.

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