Topanga Canyon Docents

Sages of Topanga! Sages thriving in our Mediterranean climate! They are beautiful! they smell wonderful! They taste delicious! And they have healing powers! This Sunday 4/24, join our docents lead nature walk. Meet at 10 am under the kiosk in the trippet ranch parking lot. About two miles in two hours. Come early to snag a parking spot at lot ($10). Sorry no dogs in the state park. 20828 Entrada Rd.Topanga Trippet Ranch. Topanga State Park.

Docent Peter Rice demonstrates the swinging of the bullroarer.

Ruth Gerson, president of the Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council, will be giving a webinar this Thursday, April 29 at 7:00 p.m. Her presentation will focus on the history of the Trails Council and the Council's role in the development of the various trails in the Santa Monica Mountains and trail work on the Channel Islands. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/trail-preservation-from-the-ma

On some of the camera sites that are a longer hike to access I don't always take my laptop along. I swap out the cards and view the images at home. Looking on t...he small playback screen on the camera in bright sun is sometimes confusing. In this case I saw I got a lion, but was confused that there were three shots of it about 15 seconds apart. The lion would have had to stand there moving slightly for almost a minute for the sensor to set the camera off that way. The simpler answer proved true - a closer look shows a family of a mother and two kittens following close behind. See more

There’s a new cougar in town (or, rather, in our study). A young female mountain lion was recently captured by NPS biologists in the Simi Hills and has become... the 96th cat to be included in our 18-year study. The mountain lion, P-96, appeared to be in good condition and is estimated to be about a year-old. A GPS radio collar was placed on her that will track her movements and provide researchers with valuable information on this small and isolated population living on the outskirts of Los Angeles. On the day of her capture, Feb. 12th, she weighed 59 lbs. As with all of our study animals, P-96 was given a full work-up, which includes taking morphological measurements, attaching an eartag, and collecting blood, hair, and tissue samples for genetic and disease analyses. DNA material collected might also provide a clue to her lineage. Photos: NPS / Jeff Sikich, Joanne Moriarty. Image 1: P-96; Image 2: Wildlife biologist Jeff Sikich conducting a work-up on our newest study cat.