NATURE TAKING ITS COURSE; CONSERVATIONISTS SEEKING CANYON WILDLIFE CORRIDOR.

Byline: Kevin F. Sherry Daily News Staff Writer

Scientists canvassing critters in the Simi Hills and Santa Monica Mountains have discovered concentrations of about a dozen bobcats on either side of the Ventura Freeway.

The bobcats need room to range for food and sustain sufficient populations to survive. That can be a problem in an area increasingly choked by suburban sprawl and bisected by the busy freeway.

``The 101 Freeway does present a pretty formidable barrier to wildlife movement. Bobcats are particularly hesitant to cross the freeway,'' said Ray Sauvajot, an ecologist and senior scientist with the National Park Service, who is managing the three-year wildlife study.

A project designed to give animals an easier path through the corridor linking the hills and the mountains is considered essential for their survival.

The Liberty Canyon Wildlife Corridor, still mostly undeveloped, serves as an escape route for animals from predators or fire and gives them room to roam. The corridor is frequented by bobcats, coyotes, raccoons, mule deer, badgers and mountain lions, said Paul Edelman, a staff ecologist and deputy division chief for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

``If we don't make a connection to the Santa Monica Mountains, we're going to lose some of the larger species,'' Edelman said.

The three-mile corridor project calls for acquiring, through purchases or developer dedications, a linear swath of land from the base of Cheeseboro Canyon, which is owned by the National Park Service, to Malibu Creek State Park.

The Conservancy and National Park Service, however, have a tough task. The resurgent real estate market has sparked renewed development plans in the region.

``We sent out this letter to landowners saying we're doing this plan and we've found that there's a lot of people who are planning on filing tract maps,'' Edelman said.

In 1993, the Conservancy purchased 400 acres for $10 million from Potomac Investments. Potomac dropped its massive Jordan Ranch proposal north of Agoura Hills to join the Ahmanson Ranch project.

Edelman said a minimum of an additional 441 acres is needed. ``Then we have what you call a functional corridor. Now, it's all undeveloped so all those parcels are acting as if they are publicly owned.''

Zoned for residential use, land suitable for the wildlife corridor is under the jurisdiction of Los Angeles County.

The area is within the proposed Ventura Freeway Corridor Areawide Plan written in response to development that mostly shaped the communities of Agoura Hills, Calabasas and surrounding unincorporated areas. Much of that development went beyond what the existing Malibu-Santa Monica Mountains Area Plan envisioned, say officials leading the effort.

The goal is maintaining rural lifestyles by reducing building density to lessen impacts on roads, schools and water resources, and foster protection of ridgelines, wildlife habitat and parkland.

The area covered spans 60 square miles, from Calabasas to the Ventura County line, north to the Simi Hills and south to Mulholland Highway.

Liberty Canyon is a primary artery.

Earlier this month, the Conservancy decided to use a $250,000 state grant to buy three properties totaling three acres along Agoura Road south of the Ventura Freeway and west of Liberty Canyon Road.

The Conservancy, a state land acquisition agency, also decided to add several other properties in the area to its high-priority list and review the wildlife corridor plan. The estimated cost of remaining land is $4 million, Edelman said.

``A lot depends on whether we get any of the properties as dedications from developers,'' he said, noting negotiations with some developers have begun.

Researchers, meanwhile, continue efforts to quantify and track the animals the corridor plan aims to protect.

Remote cameras monitor the animal population and identify crossing points.

There are 15 bobcats tagged with radio transmitters to monitor their movements.

The tracking study, now in its second year, is sponsored by the National Park Service; University of California, Los Angeles; UC Davis and the University of Massachusetts. By studying the patterns of travel, scientists hope to find characteristics of good crossing points and identify what serves as a barrier to animals, Sauvajot said.

Because of human influences, sometimes animals don't make the right turns. To help the animal traffic stay on the right course, ecologists can move fencing, add plantings, adjust the grade or carve pathways.

``Animals like to take the path of least resistance,'' Edelman noted.

Ecologists also try to block out the human influences of lights, sounds and smells that might upset the animals' natural wanderings.

Sauvajot said finding a way to make the animals comfortable to cross is key to their survival. ``It may be as simple as adding vegetation,'' he said.

A safe passage over or under the Ventura Freeway is important both for driver safety and because ``roadway mortality is the most significant cause of death for these animals,'' Sauvajot said.

A species' genetics and demographics can be hurt if the animals remain separated by the freeway. For example, a group of bobcats on one side of the freeway could interbreed and develop susceptibility to certain diseases, while the population of a group on the other side could dwindle because it has too many males and not enough females, Sauvajot said.

Researchers also study the animals' droppings to see how their diets differ in urban and natural areas and how those differences could affect them, he said. For example, a coyote in an urban area was found to have choked to death on an apricot pit, Sauvajot said.

The wildlife corridor will direct the animals to more natural diets and keep them out of residential areas.

That means coyotes will spend their time chasing rabbits instead of neighborhood cats.

THE FACTS

Piecing together the Liberty Canyon Wildlife Corridor

400 acres purchased in 1993 for $10 million.

Three acres to be purchased with a $250,000 state grant this summer.

Remaining high-priority properties include six parcels totaling 1.5 acres south of the Ventura Freeway and three parcels totaling 110.5 acres north of the Ventura Freeway on the eastern flank of the 400-acre property purchased in 1993.

Additional properties needed include 106 acres south of Agoura Road and west of Liberty Canyon Road, and 220 acres, divided among six parcels, that would create the final connection to Malibu Creek State Park.