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Bridges to survival: journalism's duty to bring environmental and wildlife reporting into mainstream media during the Anthropocene

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Bridges to survival: journalism's duty to bring environmental and wildlife reporting into mainstream media during the Anthropocene

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Bridges to Survival:
Journalism’s Duty to Bring Environmental and Wildlife Reporting
into Mainstream Media During the Anthropocene

Aliya Sovani

A Thesis Presented to
University of Southern California
Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism Graduate Program
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts, Specialized Journalism
December 2019

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Abstract
Mainstream journalism has failed to recognize the importance of reporting on the plight
wildlife face in our current environmental and climate crisis, in fact, many crucial stories are
ignored. This is not only a failure of environmental journalism, but it exposes systemic problems
with journalism itself; namely, the industry’s inability to move with the times. It calls into
question whether mainstream media outlets are placing their own commercial and economic
interests ahead of the very foundations of journalism itself: to serve people above all else. My
objective is to illustrate how wildlife issues that impact human existence are playing out in our
backyards and receive inadequate coverage, if any at all. I document two case studies of human-
wildlife conflict occurring in urban areas: One in Toronto, Canada. The other in Los Angeles,
USA. These examples illustrate how the media’s coverage of urban wildlife often lacks
important information about the environmental impact the survival of these animals has on the
public. In addition, I collected data over a one-year period (Appendix A) to monitor how local
media cover stories about Urban Wildlife. Stories were collected from LA media stations:
NBC4, FOX11, KTLA and the LA Times, that mentioned coyotes and/or mountain lions. The
sample included 57 stories.
Since taking office, President Donald Trump has waged war with the free press and
environmental science. These wars are not mutually exclusive. As journalists persist and
reexamine the foundations of our craft, telling environmental stories becomes a moral
imperative. As we move into the Anthropocene, “environmental journalism” and “wildlife
reporting” need to be smashed out of their niche boxes and bleed vigorously across genres in the
same manner as sports, entertainment, and news headlines already do.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dedications ......................................................................................................................... 4
Argument ............................................................................................................................ 5
Chapter 1: Where Pumas Lurk Behind Palm Trees .......................................................... 13
Coyote Conflict ............................................................................................................. 17
Pets Versus Pests: An Animal Equality Movement ...................................................... 20
Chapter 2: Death is a Highway ......................................................................................... 22
Environmental Fragmentation Leads to Extinction ...................................................... 25
Chapter 3: Bridges to Survival .......................................................................................... 28
Chapter 4: Turtles in Toronto. .......................................................................................... 30
Chapter 5: Human Health ................................................................................................. 34
Chapter 6: Connectivity, You Can Ride It All Night Long .............................................. 39
Build it, And They Will Come ...................................................................................... 39
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 41
Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 45
Appendix A ....................................................................................................................... 48
Appendix B ....................................................................................................................... 57

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Dedications
To professor Alan Michael Mittelstaedt who, months after Donald Trump was
inaugurated into office as President of the United States of America, asked a room full of
journalists: When people find out you were in graduate school studying journalism while
President Trump was in office, what work will you show them?
Here is proof that I did not sit idly by, but instead, in an effort to uphold journalistic
principles I am attempting to think outside the box in which environmental journalists find
themselves. In fact, this may be an effort to break that box…

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Argument
Environmental Journalism should be easily accessible to everyone, but it remains a niche
field with major storylines ignored by many in the mainstream media, brushed off as too
technical to comprehend or too complex to keep the attention of most people. Yet the way people
interact with the world and participate in society derives from what we spend time
communicating about (Cox and Pezzullo 2016). If mainstream media does not new find ways to
tell environmental stories across all platforms, journalists are not living up to their duty.
For the past fifteen years, I’ve worked as a multimedia journalist across genres of sports,
entertainment and the environment. I’ve reported from the sidelines of almost every major sports
league. I’ve covered the Olympics for a national network and stood on the ice witnessing the
NHL’s Stanley Cup Playoffs as an eighth–seeded LA Kings team won a championship
previously unattainable even with Wayne Gretzky on the roster. In the world of entertainment,
I’ve hosted glamorous red carpets for Bravo, and celebrity infotainment for E! News. As the face
of MTV for the better part of the last decade, I engaged in intense conversations with A-Listers
like Adele, Kanye West, and Tom Cruise seen by live studio audiences and aired on live
television across a continent.
And while at the Discovery Channel, I covered major environmental stories, including
the aftermath of the tragic 2010 earthquake in Haiti and sleeping on a boat for two weeks in the
middle of the ocean while covering the protest of an oil pipeline set to be built in the Great Bear
Rainforest in the wilds of Canada.
At NBC 4 in Los Angeles, where I now work, I have covered breaking news, including
the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas that killed fifty-nine people and injured over eight-
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hundred, and the Woolsey Fire, which burned almost 100,000 acres and forced more than
200,000 people to flee their homes.
From behind the mic, the camera, laptop, or mobile device – I see a trend emerging.
Stories are shared between the worlds of sports, entertainment, and hard news on a regular basis.
When Bruce Jenner bravely announced he would now be Caitlyn Jenner, it was a story seen in
headlines on ESPN, Access Hollywood, and CNN. The same type of cross-genre coverage took
place when former NBA star Lamar Odom overdosed in a brothel, and the entire Kardashian
family rushed to the hospital to be by his side.
Environmental stories are a harder sell. Despite the undeniable fact that these events
impact every human on some level – regardless of age, sex, race, nationality, or coins in the
bank.
When MTV sent me to Juba, South Sudan in 2008, the civil war seemed to have ended
(this break was unfortunately, momentary) and the country was excited to rebuild. But teenage
girls were dropping out of school during puberty, forced into marriages at very young ages (often
to men with multiple wives, and who were HIV positive.) My job as storyteller was not only to
shed light on what was happening, but to make it appealing to our demographic of comparatively
spoiled teenage girls born in the western world. The MTV audience was predominantly females
between the ages of 13 to 20, and the networks highest-rated shows at the time were The Hills
and My Super Sweet 16. How was I to get them to care about this complex issue that had to do
with race, religion, politics, and socio-economic disparity? And to boot, the girls hardly spoke
English so the entire documentary would be subtitled. The method that worked was not only
surprising, but one I would come back to throughout the trajectory of my career, and still use
today.
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One of the first things I did when I met a group of teenage girls was sit with them, pull
out my iPod, and listen to music together. They skipped through songs by Guns N Roses, while
recognizing Beyoncé and (despite the majority of them not speaking English) singing along to
her lyrics. I found out that they all loved and related to the lyrics of Tupac, cassette tapes from
the West had made it to Juba and DJ’s were starting to play his music. They hoped he would
come play in Juba one day, and I didn’t have the heart to tell them – after all they had been
through – that Tupac had been dead for over 10 years.
It was the early days of social media platforms like Facebook and MySpace that enabled
live viewer feedback from teenage girls watching in Canada who instantly related to seeing the
teenage girls in South Sudan being moved by music on an iPod. This moment of relatability over
Beyoncé kept them from being seen as an ‘other’ and provoked engagement. I received messages
across the country about student-led fundraisers for foundations like Plan Canada investing in the
girls’ education movement.
I would later employ this same model, what many journalists refer to as “the people
stories,” in my environmental reporting. In Haiti, I felt the earthquake was a story MTV needed
to share and convinced our brass to do so after finding out that celebrity movie star and musician,
Jared Leto, had briefly lived in Haiti as a child. Leto and I travelled around the “tent cities” and a
younger generation of Canadians started paying attention. Some of the most moving feedback
came from young Haitian-Canadians who started missions to find technology in Canada that
might benefit Haitians trying to survive a brutal natural disaster, in what was already the poorest
county in the western Hemisphere.
Years after initially going to the Great Bear Rainforest, while hosting and producing my
own sports show called Play with AJ, (a joint partnership between MTV and TSN [ESPN
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Canada]) I found out that NHL legend Scott Niedermayer, who grew up in British Columbia not
far from the Great Bear Rainforest, was a silent supporter of World Wildlife Fund (WWF)’s
efforts to save the rainforest from oil development. I managed to get the (usually media-shy)
Captain of the Canadian Olympic hockey team to do an interview for my show about his
upcoming induction into the hockey hall of fame, with the Great Bear Rainforest acting as our
studio. Using this location as our backdrop, we delivered an often-heated environmental debate
(a topic usually reserved for traditional hard news channels and science journals) to young
people in Canada. The very audience that would have to deal with the repercussions of the
government’s decision to – or not to – build this pipeline, in the future. The show sparked debate
among millennials across Canada and was later acknowledged by staff members of Prime
Minister Trudeau who invited me to a state dinner with Vice President Joe Biden where the two
leaders spent most of the evening discussing environmental topics.
In 1987, California’s condor population was in decline, with less than thirty flying free in
the wild. Human activity caused their demise until it reached the point of near extinction. But in
a great success story of humans also fixing the problems they caused, the condors were captured
and taken into captivity. While they were being protected and bred, civil society worked with
federal and state government to introduce legislation that would not only protect but allow the
species to thrive in the wild. Over the last decade the condors have been reintroduced to
California, with almost 300 now living in the wild.
In 2016, the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers introduced their new team mascot, the
California Condor: A pink cartoon-like bird with a yellow beak and a basketball jersey. Sports
bloggers were outraged by the choice of mascot and provoked so much public discourse about
the ugly bird, that Kanye West publicly tweeted at Clippers owner Steve Balmer that he would
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redesign the mascot. While sports journalists laughed at the story as a fluff piece, dismissively
commenting on the (ugly) appearance of the mascot, it was a missed opportunity by media to use
this news peg to tell a story in sports, pop culture, and science that could transcend genres and
provide important information about the Anthropocene and cause of the sixth mass extinction
taking place “IRL.”
Today the Amazon Rainforest – the lungs of the planet – is on fire. A fire like none the
region has ever seen before. Yet there are no stories on ESPN. Are there no athletes from Brazil?
Surely there could be a storyline about a soccer player’s thoughts on the issue. There are no
stories on E! News. Are there no celebrities from Brazil? No famous people who own homes
or travel in Brazil? Surely Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen who recently did a Sports
Illustrated photoshoot in the Brazilian Amazon could be the news peg for a pop culture story.
There are no stories on CNN. That is…there were no stories on CNN, until a public outcry went
viral on social media. When average selfie-taking-filter-using people rose up and demanded
information. The result: Multiple governments stepped up to the public stage announcing they
are pooling millions of dollars, guided by the president of France, to help the government of
Brazil put out this fire (Henoa and Torchia 2019).
In their book, The Elements of Journalism, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosentiel describe the
roots for why journalism is needed:
The reason the core elements of journalism endure is simple: they never came from
journalists in the first place. They flowed from the public’s need for news that was credible and
useful. The elements of journalism are the ingredients that allow people to know the facts and
context of events, to understand how they should react to that information, and to work on
compromises and solutions that make their communities better. (Kovach and Rosentiel 2007)

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Environmental Journalism does, of course, exist. It has for decades. And it is thorough.
Often the research is so knowledgeable and tangled into scientific deep dives that limit its
audience to narrow intellectual circles.
Whenever I work with scientists on an environmental story, no matter how deep my
research, they surprise me with new information. The type of information hardly known to
anyone is presented to me as if it were common knowledge. But for the circles they run in, the
academic journals they read, and the reporters and science writers they do interviews with –
many complicated topics are conversational.
I see parallel streams of mass communication failure when it comes to important
environmental topics. In one stream: the science writers, who write for their well-versed
audience. In the other: the mainstream reporters who, with pressures for deadlines and time
constraints on segment lengths or word counts, can’t possibly explain an entire issue to someone
who’s never read about it before.
“Yet much of the research on climate change has concentrated on its scientific
dimensions, while many significant social and political aspects of climate change have been
understudied,” writes Yael Wolinksy-Nahmias, in the preface to her book Changing Climate
Politics. “Although climate change is a physical phenomenon, its broad implications require
social and political action at every level of society, by individuals, cities, nations, and the
international community.”
As environmental concerns begin to impact all facets of newsworthy events (Example:
Athlete health concerns due to smog at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing) it is necessary for
governments and citizens to have basic knowledge of these issues to engage in dialogue. Lacking
this will result in important environmental issues failing to be addressed. However, when these
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issues successfully bleed into mainstream media and activate citizens, as seen with the current
Amazon Rainforest fires, government officials and legislators take notice and act. Reporters
carry the power to inform the masses to demand change through the stories we choose to tell.
“With its vast and direct influence on public opinion, journalism cannot be guided only
by economic forces, profit, and special interest,” says Pope John Paul II in June 2000. “It must
instead be felt as a mission in a certain sense sacred, carried out in the knowledge that the
powerful means of communication have entrusted to you for the good of all.” (Kovach and
Rosentiel 2007)
For all environmental beat reporters, but specifically for wildlife reporters (whose stories
are often passed off as “fluff” or “cute animal” stories) the frustration has been mounting and
seems to be coming to a tipping point. Sharon Guynup from National Geographic Magazine,
who exposed the ‘Tiger Temple,’ a famous Buddhist Monastery that was really a cover for a
massive illegal wildlife trafficking operation, also feels this tipping point:
These are important stories, and they’re not just about the demise of individual species.
Each of these animals is part of interwoven ecosystems that have evolved in synchrony over
millions of years. Pulling threads from this fabric of life has cascading effects that reverberate
throughout and across systems…wild African elephants could disappear in a decade. And much
of the African continent could suffer forever in their absence. It’s just one example of why
wildlife stories matter and why it’s important for journalists to keep them in the public eye.
(Guynup 2017)

The consequences of this have never been more apparent than in decisions being made by
the current U.S. administration: Denying climate science, pulling out of the Paris agreement,
amending the Endangered Species Act, rolling back safety rules for offshore drilling and for
greenhouse gas emissions from coal plants, signing executive orders to build pipelines and
increase forest lodging on public lands, handing oil and gas companies access to protected
habitat, nominating controversial coal and energy lobbyists to keep positions at the
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Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), disbanding the air pollution review panel, as well as
cuts and censorship of NASA’s climate programs and scientists. (Greshko, et al. 2019)
While I cannot touch on every environmental and wildlife topic the public should hold
basic knowledge about, I will use a few case studies to demonstrate the issue. The topic of
‘Urban Wildlife’ is an issue that is happening, quite literally, in our own backyards. It is a topic
of much discussion in scientific circles today, but the average person knows very little about it.
Wildlife continue to be portrayed in a nature outside of daily human existence, while animals
living within city limits are brushed aside as pests. The consequence of losing urban wildlife is
losing biodiversity. The loss of biodiversity has direct impacts on human health, well-being, and
livelihoods. Without a media informing the mass population using storytelling that is easy to
comprehend, there is no public outcry for politicians to address these issues. In turn, government
officials are doing little to get ahead of these problems, with consequences for wildlife and
humans alike. The case studies on the following pages take place in Los Angeles and Toronto.
These cases examine different species in different climates and habitats, but they all capture the
potential for media reporting to play a central role at the forefront of human-wildlife conflict in
an urban environment. They are a microcosm of what’s happening globally.

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Chapter 1: Where Pumas Lurk Behind Palm Trees
Los Angeles is famous for its global exports of Hollywood pop and sports culture. But in
the pantheon of environmental nerds, LA is known as a hotbed for biodiversity.
“There’s often a misconception that Los Angeles is a concrete jungle, when in reality the
city is home to one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world,” says Brian Brown, a curator at
the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in an interview with The Guardian. (Carroll
2016)
On local news stations, a day rarely passes without a story of a coyote walking through
the streets of downtown, a bear jumping in a family’s pool in Pasadena, or a pet chicken in
Calabasas eaten by the pumas that roam through the Santa Monica Mountains. LA serving as the
home to pumas (also known as mountain lions, panthers, and cougars) is particularly noteworthy,
since Mumbai is the only other major city in the world where big cats and humans live side by
side. But the story of human-wildlife conflict in LA is much more fascinating and complex than
Appendix B: Video 1 https://youtu.be/9dFuMN9a0q0

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the occasional one-minute news media report. It has, in fact, reached a watershed moment in
time for both humans and cougars.
Beth Pratt is the California Director for the National Wildlife Federation. She is an expert
on wildlife crossings, and travels the world to give lectures, presentations, and consult about eco-
passageways. I’m accompanying her on a 5-day hike as she retraces the steps of P-22 (the 22nd
Puma outfitted with a GPS collar in the National Parks Service research study of pumas in the
Santa Monica Mountains.)
“What we’re doing here,” says Pratt, who is teaming up with the National Parks Service
to build a large wildlife crossing in LA, “is ensuring that wildlife – more specifically the
mountain lion population that is about to go extinct if we don’t do something – thrives into the
future.”
Pratt has worked on wildlife projects in Yosemite and Yellowstone national parks.
What’s unique about her current mission to save LA’s pumas is that it takes place in an urban
environment. If her vision of coexistence can succeed in the second-largest city in the USA, it
would be worldwide model.
“Mountain lions are here with us every day,” she says, looking out at the vast forested
land in front of her. “And if you look down this canyon right here, odds are there’s a mountain
lion taking a nap down there.”
Mountain lions are nocturnal, sleeping during the day and hunting at night. Pratt carries
her camera, just in case she gets lucky. “We’re surrounded by them. We don’t see them, but they
see us.”
While LA offers fragmented green space between urbanized areas, the city’s pumas do
not have access to a large park or forest. They live much like their human neighbors: in the fog
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of pollution, stuck because of traffic, navigating through new construction and development,
impacted by gentrification, homeless encampments, garbage, and tourists. Of course, they are
still wild lions – wild city lions.
In fact, all of LA’s wildlife (pumas, bears, coyotes, bobcats, deer, birds, etc.) have
adapted to urban living alongside human Angelenos.
This is not uncommon, says Suzanne MacDonald, an animal psychology professor at
York University, who is well-known for her ground-breaking research on raccoons. Her studies
show that wildlife can adapt so well to urbanized environments that their natural behaviors will
differ from their wild counterparts, and they pass those learned traits down to their children.
Much in the same way we see differences between the way ‘city-folk’ and ‘country-folk’ live.
“Raccoons living in the city will teach their young how to do things like open locked
garbage bins,” she says. “They learn behavior and skill sets that are totally different than, or not
at all seen in, raccoons in the wild.”
The best example of the adaptability of LA’s pumas, is P-22.
Appendix B: Video 2 https://youtu.be/9qB8eTFdXuk

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“He is the Brad Pitt of the mountain lion world,” says Pratt, referring to his popularity
without irony, as she hikes through the backbone trail. “We’ve just never seen a cat live in the
middle of a city before.
She has a life-sized cardboard cut-out of the handsome puma strapped to her hiking
backpack. Around her neck is an actual GPS-collar used on mountain lions in the National Park
Service study. She hopes to draw attention from hikers and bring awareness to the work she is
doing with NPS, and their partners, to save the local mountain lion population.
Most of LA’s pumas live in the Santa Monica Mountains surrounding the city of LA. But
P-22 lives, literally, under the Hollywood sign in one of LA’s largest tourist attractions, Griffith
Park. And yet, he is hardly ever seen. A notorious puma trait that earned the species the
nickname, Ghost Cats.
But what is extraordinary about P-22 isn’t that he lives in Griffith Park, it’s how he got
there.
“He crossed two major freeways in LA, which if I tried, I would probably die, to make a
home in the middle of LA. Not on the outskirts, in the middle,” says Pratt, “And what’s
remarkable is that he has been coexisting peacefully with the 10 million people that surround
him.”
She believes P-22 is a poster child for showing people that they can live in the midst of
potentially dangerous predators, and not only peacefully coexist, but thrive because of it.
Unfortunately, it’s a concept that has not been communicated well by the most media.
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I collected data from mainstream media over a one-year period (December 2017 –
December 2018) to examine how urban wildlife is portrayed in mainstream TV in LA. In stories
that mentioned coyotes and/or pumas, forty-nine percent were about animals trespassing on
private (that is, human-owned) property, while forty-six percent of the stories were photos of
cute baby kittens, or as digital producers would call it, clickbait. The majority of stories in LA
failed to even mention any environmental issue at all.

Coyote Conflict
Justin Brown, a biologist at the National Parks Service who researches wildlife in the
Santa Monica Mountains, has just finished collecting 3000 specimens of coyote scat (the term
many scientists use for coyote poop) to dissect it and find out if they are really eating all the
neighborhood pets. Spoiler: The majority of LA coyote diet consists of human food, dog food,
and fruit. City coyotes are more likely to eat cats, while rural coyotes preferred rabbits and had
very low percentages of human and dog food in their scat (National Park Service 2019).
Trespassing
49% Cute Kittens
46%
Other
5%
Urban Wildlife Story Topics on Local News
Trespassing Cute Kittens Other
Appendix A. 1
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“A lot of time people think coyotes are a 100-pound animal,” says Brown, “when really
they are just a 25-pound animal.”
He believes a lot of the fear of coyotes comes from local news media appropriating “big
bad wolf” characteristics to them. They label them as evil predators who intentionally infringe on
human space and knowingly trespass on private property. Stories written with the knowledge of
cohabitation would be more useful for humans to curb their own behavior but lose the “Hide
your kids! Hide your puppies! Coyotes are coming!” shock factor.
“There are certain times of year where coyotes are very prone to following someone
walking a small dog,” says Brown. “Bigger canids usually do kill smaller canids.”
In the wild, wolves kill coyotes, coyotes kill foxes, foxes kill…well, probably something
the size of your miniature poodle.
“But it gets complex, especially around breeding season,” says Brown, “when people are
walking their domestic dogs around coyote’s den sites.”
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Brenda Barnette, the general manager of Los Angeles Department of Animal Services,
believes the main issue isn’t coyote behavior, but how people need to be educated about coyotes
and how to live among them.
“I think a lot of people have lost small dogs and cats so you can’t really then say to the
person, ‘Look, you really shouldn’t have left that dog or cat out there unattended or alone in the
first place.’”
On her desk sits a small sculpture of a beagle rolled over on its back, which serves as her
business card holder. Next to it lay stacks of files full of paperwork about coyote workshops she
has organized across the city to help families understand what to do, and not to do, to reduce
human-animal conflicts.
Barnette works closely with the U.S. Department of Fish & Wildlife when a troublesome
coyote needs to be killed in LA due to its dangerous behavior towards humans. She says those
Appendix B: Video 3 https://youtu.be/afyakId2tPo

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situations are extremely rare. Over a decade ago, the L.A. Department of Animal Services would
frequently dispatch workers to shoot coyotes. Today, despite the high number of calls and
complaints about coyote sightings, they no longer kill coyotes for entering residential
neighborhoods.
“One day the officers just said, ‘Y’know we do this every year and there are no fewer
coyotes,” recounts Barnette. “We aren’t making a dent in the population. And we don’t even
know who they were in the coyote community.”
She says the officers put their foot down and refused to continue killing coyotes.
“I think management heard the truth in that,” she says, “and they supported it. So that’s
been the policy for longer than I’ve been here.”
Barnette and her department believe coexistence is possible, but people need to be
educated about the benefits of having coyotes around and understand that development continues
to encroach on their territory, pushing them into suburban neighborhoods – and closer to people.
Pets Versus Pests: An Animal Equality Movement
Regardless of species, headline trends in mass media tend to group wildlife that live in
urban areas as pests or nuisances, not worthy of the same protection humans give to wildlife in
National Parks or their own pets.
“In Nairobi, Kenya there are giant storks,” says MacDonald. “When you think of our
cities, we have pigeons, you know? You are so used to seeing pigeons you don’t think of them
like an urban animal – but they are.”
“So, imagine going to Kenya and seeing these enormous five-foot tall storks everywhere,
and that’s their pigeon!” she says, animating their size with arm gestures.
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MacDonald sees westerners who travel to Kenya stand around a landfill taking photos of
the storks. She says Kenyans see storks the same way as North Americans see pigeons.
“For us, the storks are magnificent giant birds. To them, they are just a nuisance,” she
says. “The same as pigeons, or raccoons, or coyotes are for us.”
Pratt is baffled by people who show such love for animals they see in National
Geographic magazine, but lack compassion for the wild animals in their own backyards.
“I remember reading on a Facebook post near where I live,” she says, “a woman who
said, ‘I’m all for coexistence but the bear broke into my chicken coop last night and he broke the
rules so that’s it.’”
Obviously, the bear was not aware of the rules. “The bear doesn’t know that the chicken
is a death sentence. To the bear that just looks like food,” she says. This is the same principle
locals need to apply to the depleted mountain lion population.
“We need to help them thrive,” Pratt says, “by actually not setting them up for failure.”

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Chapter 2: Death is a Highway
Life’s like a road that you travel on. When there’s one day here and the next day gone.
Sometimes you bend and sometimes you stand. Sometimes you turn your back to the wind.
(Life is a Highway, by Tom Cochrane)

Most pumas that have walked up to one of LA’s infamous freeways turn around before
attempting to cross the wall of speeding metal objects. Those who attempt to cross almost always
become roadkill. NPS biologists track about 12 pumas in the area. They estimate around 20 live
in the Santa Monica Mountains. Considering this limited population, a dark shadow looms over
the future of these lions every time one is struck by a car.
P-22 (the Brad Pitt of mountain lions) is the first cougar to have successfully crossed both
the 101 and 405 freeways in LA. Pratt’s hike through the scenic backbone trail spits her out right
in the middle of a concrete jungle, the same way it did to P-22. She is standing on the
Mulholland Overpass looking down at the blur of cars and heat speeding down the dreaded 405
freeway. Pratt holds the safety fence, as hundreds of cars zoom by every minute, the energy
spreading through the asphalt into the road partitions, causing the metal wires on which her
fingers are intertwined to buzz with vibration.
“I’m standing here looking at one of the busiest freeways in the world and the traffic
never stops. I can’t even imagine setting foot down there, yet somehow a mountain lion dared to
do it.”
Pratt believes his drive to find a new home was so strong, he did what no other mountain
lion has been known to do.
“That he braved the 405, which most of us won’t,” she says. “There’s a rule in LA, never
get on the 405. And he did!”
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In her book about P-22, When Mountain Lions are Neighbors: People and Wildlife
Working it out in California, Pratt wrote about the cat crossing the freeway. But here today as
she walks this journey on foot, she imagines him contemplating the decision to cross.
“I imagine this cat, literally of an ancient species pulled over from the last ice age,
wandering through open space. He’s probably seeing houses here or there, but very abruptly he’s
faced all of a sudden on his journey with this. His big paws that are padded more for rock and
natural places…”
She pauses to listen to the noise pollution coming from below.
“I’m picturing him coming, those first steps he takes with his paws, and feeling the
vibrations and not knowing if he should go further but knowing he has to.”

We are all familiar with the concept of roadkill, but the concept of ‘fragmentation’ isn’t
often mentioned by journalists in day-to-day reporting. A term that should be known to the
Appendix B: Video 4 https://youtu.be/nrbcMp2GwfE

24
general public for reasons that will become clear in the following pages. The barriers these
roadways cause for wildlife is so profound, that it fundamentally changes local ecosystems,
impacting not only biodiversity but also human health. (I’ll get to this later point in Chapter 5)
While LA is synonymous with traffic, fragmentation due to freeways is not just an issue
occurring between LA pumas and LA roads. It is happening to beasts big and small. From turtles
in Toronto to elephants in Kenya. Cars kill wildlife. And cars are created and operated by
humans.
In her 2014 Pulitzer-Prize winning non-fiction book, The 6th Extinction, Elizabeth
Kolbert writes about human impact on wildlife. She says science now shows that we are in the
midst of the sixth extinction, similar to what happened to the dinosaurs.
The current extinction has its own novel cause: not an asteroid or a massive volcanic
eruption but “one weedy species.”
This era is being referred to, by scientists, as the Anthropocene, meaning the age of
humans. Along with habitat destruction like deforestation and climate change, environmental
fragmentation is one of the most significant causes of this extinction. Cutting off wildlife species
from their lifelines: food, water, and the ability to mate. And the negative outcomes are
irreversible.
Yet the mainstream media’s attention is minimal. Instead we see headlines like, Donald
Trump says he loves daughter Tiffany after aide claims he avoids being pictured with her
(Telegraph Reporters 2019).
“Mountain lions, they can adapt to fire, climate, new territories, they can adapt to many
things – but they can’t adapt to freeways,” says Pratt. “These roads create an un-penetrable wall
25
for mountain lions and all wildlife. The challenges created for mountain lions will, at worst,
cause their extinction.”
In fact, LA’s pumas are having so much difficulty adapting to LA’s freeways that, if
humans do not intervene, NPS predicts the entire population currently living in the Santa Monica
Mountains will die out within the next 50 years.
Yet seventy-
seven percent of local
news stories about
pumas in 2018 failed
to mention their
imminent extinction.

Environmental Fragmentation Leads to Extinction
Almost all urban wildlife living in fragmented habitats face a two-fold problem: They
need to cross highways, but if they try, they will die. So, they stay in place but are limited by the
resources they have. This could be food supply, or water. For LA’s pumas, they are being forced
to mate with the tiny population that live on this side of the freeway, primarily consisting of their
own family members.
“We are having a lot of genetic issues with our animals,” says Justin Brown. “So, like
with mountain lions, we’ve seen daughters breeding with dads, grandfathers, and great
grandfathers.”
Mention
23%
No Mention
77%
Puma Stories in Los Angeles
TV News That Failed to Mention Extinction
Mention No Mention Appendix A. 2
26
And no, inbreeding is not a cougar thing. LA’s mountain lions have simply been left with
no choice to survive. Their reality has been created by our choices for infrastructure. As with
humans, the inbreeding of pumas could result in birth defects. Brown says scientific research
conducted by the National Park Service shows inbreeding will eventually cause LA’s pumas to
genetically flat-line, and the population with collapse.
“If we don’t have landscapes interconnected, we are going to end up losing many
animals.”
Every time LA loses a mountain lion to a traffic collision, it’s game over much quicker
for the entire population.
“The fifty-year time horizon could shorten considerably with other causes of fatalities,”
says Pratt. “We only have maybe two or three dominant breeding males down here. One year we
lost four lions.”
Two mountain lions died during the Woolsey Fire in the winter of 2018, the largest fire
the area has ever seen. One puma was engulfed by flames, the other (P-64) escaped the fire but
died in the weeks that followed due to burnt paws (National Park Service 2018). NPS knows this
from data gathered from their GPS collars and wildlife cameras – many of which burned – but
their SD cards were left intact.
P-64 is a puma that NPS had followed from the time he was a kitten in the den to his
death after the Woolsey Fire, and was particularly interesting because of how well he had
adapted to urban living.
A culvert runs under the 101, near where the Liberty Canyon Wildlife Crossing could be
built. It’s long, damp, extremely dark, and often flooded with water. A place most mountain
27
lions haven’t dared go. But P-64 figured it out and used it dozens of times. Despite his
adaptability, his end was tragic.
“His GPS tracking indicates that it is likely, he could not get away from the fire zone
because he kept running into freeways and development,” says Pratt. “Essentially he escaped the
fire itself but couldn’t escape urbanization.”
P-64 ran to the freeway but was forced to turn around and walk back through the burn
area. Where he died. Limiting the gene pool further, for the mountain lions in this area.
For Southern California the impacts of climate change will mean bigger fires, more often.
This is bad news for all wildlife as they will literally need to run for their lives – but especially
hard for the wildlife who also need to adapt to freeways on their journeys to survival.
“Climate change is also likely to have a very broad range of impacts, including warmer
surface temperatures, more frequent heat waves, more severe storms, including hurricanes and
tropical cyclones, rising sea levels, increased intensity of both floods and droughts, loss of
farming production, spread of infectious diseases, and extinction of species and loss of
biodiversity” (Wolinsky-Nahmias 2015)

As more extreme weather conditions become the new normal journalists will need to
understand how environmental factors impact their coverage. If the Academy Awards red carpet
is hotter than usual, or all the tennis players get rained out during the US Open, or a movie set
gets burned down in the next California wildfire, it would be wise for reporters to have some
basic understanding of environmental factors. Not all situations will warrant full environmental
coverage, but reporters have a responsibility to inform viewers – if done effectively – and strike
their curiosity just enough for them to google more information if they so wish.

28
Chapter 3: Bridges to Survival
The good news for LA’s mountain lions is that humans know how to fix their problem.
“Wildlife Crossings are nothing new. The United States is a little behind some other
countries, but catching up,” says Pratt. “But we’re taking it a step further here. We’re saying not
only is it OK that there’s mountain lions living in LA, but we want to ensure they stay in this
area by building a $60 million crossing. So, this is really visionary.”
LA’s Liberty Canyon Wildlife Crossing is the first of its kind and will be the biggest in
the world.

“Look I’d love for it to be smaller,” says Pratt, “but we are putting it over the 101
freeway which is ten lanes of traffic, plus an access road.”
29
Despite its size, the hope is that the wildlife crossing itself, won’t be very noticeable to
drivers. The design includes using land and soil from the area, as well as native foliage to match
the surrounding environment.
“It will be a landscape continuous,” says Clark Stevens, the project architect, which is a
key factor in convincing animals to use it. When animals follow the native vegetation, it will
guide them to the on-ramp of the crossing. “You’re looking across and there’s more of your
homeland on the other side.”
Stevens says the bridge will literally be a piece of their habitat. He refers to this as,
micro-typography.
“We’ll create miniaturized landforms,” which will include trees and shrubs that will
block the noise from the freeway traffic. “We will create sound separation, more hidden
pathways, and more of a braided landscape.”
By braiding three local landscapes, continuity will flow across the bridge encouraging
different species to cross, even encouraging birds to fly over it. National Parks biologist, Justin
Brown, says this bridge could save LA’s pumas from extinction, but will also benefit all local
wildlife.
“It will help everything from the smallest animal to reptiles, small mammals, lizards,
snakes, all those species should be able to use it to some level.”
The world’s biggest crossing will stretch over 10 lanes.
“Three-hundred-thousand cars will go under this bridge every day,” says Pratt. “But it
doesn’t have to be big to reconnect a fragmented landscape. Like in Canada, where you have
crossings for turtles.”

30
Chapter 4: Turtles in Toronto.
Turtles have been on this planet for 200 million years, they walked this earth with
dinosaurs, yet their historical ability to survive is unable to keep them safe from human impacts
like, habitat loss, poaching, and climate change. About sixty-one percent of the world’s turtle
species are almost – or already – extinct (Lovich, et al. 2018).
All eight species of turtles found in the province of Ontario, Canada are recognized as at-
risk species.
Vince D’Elia is the project manager for a turtle corridor constructed under a busy street
called Heart Lake Road, about an hour outside of Toronto. He has collected turtle roadkill and
says that unlike larger mammals, that – when struck – lay visible on the side of the road or can
damage to your car, turtle-vehicle interactions are mostly unnoticeable.
“From a car these are things you won’t notice. They are squishes on the road,” says
D’Elia. “Unfortunately, that’s what they look like. If you start paying attention, you’ll start
seeing the skin, the fragments. Each little stain on the road represents wildlife that interacted
with a vehicle.”
Suzanne MacDonald’s worldwide research on human-wildlife conflicts leads her to
conclude that cars are the biggest predator today.
“Cars are the apex predator in urban areas. And that’s the same for every species, in
every urban area,” she says. “Elephants in Kenya get hit by cars, and you can imagine when that
happens, people in the car don’t survive either. It’s just like here in Canada – you hit a moose,
that’s it for you!”
Cars are deadly and cars travel on roads, so the roads are the problem.
31
“If you have relatives on one side of the road and relatives on the other, or boys on one
side of the road and girls on the other, the animals are going to move,” says MacDonald. “And as
soon as they cross that road, they are likely to get hit.”
This is a huge problem for slow-moving turtles that can take an hour to cross a small
street like Heart Lake Road in Toronto.
Although it’s the dead of winter, the road is busy. And tire skid marks lead to a broken
railing along the street where a car lost control due to icy winter conditions. For humans to safely
cross this road is nearly impossible. Short of a miracle, a turtle doesn’t stand a chance.
The road divides a wetland complex, literally, right in half. And while cars zoom down
the road, many drivers will notice the surrounding beauty. But few people will notice that the
beautiful drive cuts in half, what was once one complete habitat.
“This road, in terms of where roads should be built,” says D’Elia, “is probably one of the
worst places you could build a road.”
We’re standing knee deep in snow, cold wet slush has started seeping into my boots –
which I’m realizing are not waterproof. Slapping my face is a wind so cold it hurts. D’Elia pulls
off his gloves to swipe through photos on his phone taken by wildlife tracking-cameras installed
inside the turtle crossing. The grainy, black-and-white night photos show the brightly lit eyes of
raccoons, possums, rabbits, squirrels, and skunks inside the dark tunnel.
“It becomes like a highway for a lot of mammals,” he says. “Critters are moving back and
forth every day.”
Unlike the Liberty Canyon Wildlife Crossing in Los Angeles, which will go up and over
a freeway, the turtle crossing is an underground tunnel. But MacDonald says the concepts for
most of these crossings are identical. She pulls up two photos on her computer of recent
32
crossings she’s worked on, one of this Turtle Crossing in Canada, and the other of an elephant
crossing in Kenya. Without an animal in the photo, the two concrete structures (they look like
giant grey upside-down U’s) are identical.
“It’s exactly the same thing we would do with elephants, just elephants are on a larger
scale.” MacDonald says. “You can see the turtle crossing looks the exact same, it’s just a lot
smaller.”

These issues faced by urban wildlife are a global problem. MacDonald, who spends much
of her year travelling around the world to consult on animal-psychology issues and how to solve
human-wildlife conflict, sees the need for wildlife corridors across the world.
“Although when you think about wildlife crossings you may think of LA because of all
the attention on saving the mountain lion population,” she says, “it’s a problem in every city, and
every suburban area, in the entire world.”
Appendix B: Video 5 https://youtu.be/QvCzD0d0Cj0

33
These are all things that we, as animals, do (yes, humans too): We sleep, we eat, we find
mates, and we look for better places to live.
“Although a lion, an elephant, and a turtle are very different – they all move for the same
reasons,” she says, as waves of snow from the blizzard hit her office window. “And certainly, if
you live in Canada! We all definitely migrate to better weather in the winter.”
The same principles apply to animal migrations: They are looking for food, water, mates,
or for better weather.

34
Chapter 5: Human Health
Ensuring the survival and health of wildlife in urban areas is not simply about saving
wildlife, but ensuring good human health, too.
Society has accepted the idea that humans need trees for survival. Yet little attention is
given to what trees need to survive: biodiversity and a healthy ecosystem. Without water and
bugs and wildlife, the soil and trees cannot do what humans need them to do. Science shows that
our planet is losing biodiversity at a terrifying speed, and the primary cause of this is habitat
degradation (Palmer 2012).
“We are part of this ecosystem as well, and if you pull out any part, we are messing with
something we don’t fully understand. But research is showing that it has an impact on our own
human health,” says Pratt. “If we pull mountain lions out of the Santa Monica Mountains
ecosystem, or any ecosystem, that could have really bad effects on human health.”
Many scientists have written about the repercussions of the near-extinction faced by the
pumas in Florida, the ecosystem imbalance in their absence was well-documented, including a
surge in the deer population without their top predator. The data proposes more research be done
linking the rise in deer population and increased cases of Lyme Disease on the East Coast (Levi,
et al. 2012).
While niche media outlets target their stories about animals to animal lovers, the fact is
that throwing an ecosystem out of balance impacts all humans, especially when that ecosystem is
a city.
“What’s interesting to me with pulling predators out of ecosystems,” says Pratt, “is that
we have a lot of good science behind this. In areas like Yellowstone, or what we call traditional
35
wilderness areas. We don’t know everything that’s going to happen in such an urban core. There
could be repercussions to us that we don’t even know yet, because it’s never happened before.”
P-22’s success story has reached Canada. MacDonald, who lives in Toronto, is a big fan
of LA’s mountain lions and keeps tabs on the status of their impending demise.
“When you talk about apex predators like that, they’re the first to go,” says Macdonald.
“You know we’re taking all the great white sharks out of the ocean, and we remove the wolves
and we remove tigers in India, or whatever we think is causing a danger to humans. And when
we do that, we change the ecosystem irrevocably.”
And while this issue is of utmost importance, and should be front and center in
mainstream media, it is understandably complicated. Journalists can find angles to make these
narratives interesting to most viewers by summarizing how it could impact their daily lives.
“They do a lot of scavenger work, a lot of cleanup. If we didn’t have coyotes, I think
we’d have a whole lot more rodents and rats,” says Barnette. “I think it’s just another branch of
the sanitation department (laughs.) I don’t know if the general manager of sanitation sees them
that way! But I’ll ask him the next time I see him!”
The impact on human health is not derived solely from the direct loss of a species, but
also the impact on the land where they live, and their role in how that ecosystem functions.
Turtles are a great example of this.
Turtles contribute to the health of many environments, including desert, wetland,
freshwater and marine ecosystems, and declines may lead to negative effects on other species,
including humans, that may not be immediately apparent (Lovich, et al. 2018).

“A healthy ecosystem benefits humans just as much as it benefits wildlife,” says D’Elia.
“An ecosystem such as this wetland complex, we have here at Heart Lake Road, provides us with
aesthetic beauty but also provides us with clean air, clean water.”
36
Science has proven that humans benefit when we have a healthy ecosystem. But an
ecosystem cannot be healthy if predators go extinct and the food chain is out of whack. Yet none
of the stories about mountain lions, that appeared on LA’s local news channels in 2018
mentioned the link between urban wildlife and human health.
“When we have all the levels of the ecosystem there from the tiny little bugs to butterflies
to the squirrels to the raccoons to coyotes – it’s a normal ecosystem,” says Macdonald, “the
trophic levels are in place and that is the way the world is supposed to be. When you move any
or all of those, then everything goes to hell.”

MacDonald goes as far to say that if we continue to idly stand by and kill species with
our vehicles, we will create a world we don’t want to live in.
“We live in an ecosystem. An ecosystem with just humans is not an ecosystem,” she says.
“That would be some weirdo zoo we just made for ourselves. And I don’t want to live in that
zoo.”
Mentioned
0%
Never Mentioned
100%
Stories About Urban Wildlife That Mention the Link to Human
Health (or Lyme Disease)
Mentioned Never Mentioned
Appendix A. 3
37
While it’s unlikely we would lose all animals in the next fifty years, it is quite likely that
is the fate of LA’s mountain lions. In a worst-case scenario, if the Liberty Canyon Wildlife
Crossing doesn’t get built in time, or if the pumas can’t be saved, Brown has trouble imagining
what that ecosystem imbalance would mean for Angelenos.
“We would love to know all that, but some questions are hard to get at. And the only way
you’re going to know is if we lose them,” says Brown. “And I don’t think any of us are willing to
take that risk.”

Currently, society portray wildlife living in urban communities as pests, infringing on
personal territory, and causing property damage. Yet rarely do related media stories portray the
larger issue of the Anthropocene - or the sixth mass extinction - taking place in our backyards
and how we humans will be impacted. Journalism tells the stories of communities, while doing
so it creates common knowledge and provides narratives on shared values, shared heroes, and
shared villains.
Appendix B: Video 6 https://youtu.be/6eT1xlqDY4c

38
“No one needs a news organization to know what the White House is saying when all the
press briefings are posted on YouTube,” says Jonathan Stray, in a post for Harvard’s Neimen
Journalism Lab. “What we do need is someone to tell us what it means.” (Kovach and Rosentiel
2007, 29)
The same thing applies to local news stations who cry wolf every time a coyote is caught
on camera roaming into neighborhood yard. While it’s easy to blame the metaphorical big bad
wolf, urban wildlife are never the plotting villains they are portrayed to be in mainstream media.
Reporters should do a bit more digging and inform the public on the role of development and
highways that weren’t well planned, and offer solutions for infrastructure upgrades that could
now cost millions in taxpayer’s money to fix (Kovach and Rosentiel 2007, 17).

39
Chapter 6: Connectivity, You Can Ride It All Night Long
Beth Pratt’s hiking gear includes a Puma brand tank top. She greets me at the Lois Ewen
Overlook and jokes that she’s not sponsored by them – yet. She’s hopeful. From this vantage
point, the perfect high school make-out spot, you can see the full story of LA’s urban wildlife
problem: Far in the distance, past the rolling green hills and hidden sprawl of homes, is the Los
Padres National Forest. A place Pratt endearingly calls, the promise-land. It’s where thousands of
pumas live. This is where the local LA pumas need to go mate to expand their genetic pool.
The late 19th Century is when the U.S. government heralded environmental policies to
protect what are now known as national parks, like Yosemite and Yellowstone (Kraft 2015). It
took over a century for wilderness protection to reach the current level. These national parks are
important, but – what was unforeseen when they were established with the best of intentions –
they operate as isolated islands that are not self-sustained. They need what scientists call
connectivity.
“It is really important to have more than just our national parks system set up because our
parks are never going to be big enough to support many of our larger species,” says Brown. “If
we don’t have landscapes interconnected, we are going to end up losing many animals.”
Build it, And They Will Come
The consensus among scientists, biologists, and environmentalists is that connectivity
needs to be understood by the public and included in city planning. Leaving it to activists and the
science community is no longer enough. Environmentalists don’t have the power to raise funds
for bridges with a speed that could outpace the rate by which animals are going extinct.
“In situations like Heart Lake road we’re repairing a situation that was made in the past.
We put a road through a wetland and we’re trying to find a solution to sort of mitigate that
40
mistake,” says D’Elia. He pushes city officials who handle new development to better
understand the way wildlife are using the habitat before building infrastructure, “so that we
design that infrastructure to not to impact wildlife movement and the different life cycles of
wildlife that depend on that habitat.”
Justin Brown, who is employed by the National Park Service, agrees. “If we want
wildlife to be present, I think one of the most important factors is keeping green spaces open,
make sure when roads are developed wildlife is considered,” says Brown. “At least if it’s gone
into the original planning, we can make roadways permeable to wildlife. It’s much cheaper to
make those changes while something is being developed than it is to wait ten years after it is
developed, and then trying to go back and make those changes.”
Time is running out. Just a few weeks ago I reported on a story for NBC about P-61
being the first collared-puma to successfully cross the 405 Freeway in LA (P-22 was not collared
at the time he crossed) and NPS biologists were excited to track the cats next moves. But as I
submit my thesis this week, news has come that P-61 was struck and killed by a car trying to
cross back over that same freeway (National Park Service 2019).
The Liberty Canyon Wildlife Crossing is currently in the final design phase. The 200-
foot-long bridge is set to be complete by 2023. But financing is still needed, eighty percent of the
$87 million required to complete the bridge must come from private donations (Solly 2019).
Over $13 million has been raised to date (Save LA Cougars 2019).

41
Conclusion
As seen with the recent Amazon Fires, government officials move on issues in response
to public outcry. And this isn’t a phenomenon that started with social media. The history of the
American politics shows the environmental movement was a result of politicians responding to
the demands of their constituents.
In his book, Environmental Policy and Politics, Michael E. Kraft writes:
The new environmental movement that was critical to bringing the innovative policy
changes of the 1970s drew much of its political strength and moral force from the American
public itself, which has continued to be one of the most important determinants of U.S
environmental politics and policy (Kraft 2015).

But how can the public cry out when they are getting too little information?
“In our system of government and in our society, a free and independent, truly
independent, fiercely independent press is the red beating heart of our democracy,” said
legendary CBS news anchor, Dan Rather at a journalism event hosted by Poynter after the 2016
Presidential Election.
Yet national-media headlines continue to hang on President Donald Trump’s every word,
every lie, every action. And since environmental or wildlife issues are rarely uttered from his
mouth, or seen on his agenda, mainstream media covering national issues find little room to
include pressing news of human-wildlife conflict, biodiversity loss, habitat fragmentation, or the
6th extinction.
“We need the next generation of people who have been trained properly to say wildlife
are not the problem,” says MacDonald. “Human-wildlife conflict can be a problem, but wildlife
are not the problem.”
A solutions-based journalism approach could be the answer. Finding “people” stories,
with people of interest in sports or pop culture, and including calls to actions so the public –
42
many of whom are eager to make change but don’t know how – can get involved. It’s why what
Beth Pratt is doing in LA is so noteworthy.
“We are setting a worldwide model for urban wildlife conservation here,” she says,
“that’s going to show the rest of the world what can be done.”
Journalists have a moral imperative to research, pitch, and report on stories that enlighten
their audiences about issues that matter, even if the stories are hard to tell, or contradict powerful
corporate and/or political interests (Kovach and Rosentiel 2007, 272). Scientists believe we are
living at a time when much of the havoc our species has wreaked on earth could be reversed or
mitigated. This is the moment when every journalist needs to take into account what side of
history we want to be on.
While environmental stories may be a harder sell, reporters covering any type of world
affairs beat must accept personal accountability to challenge producers, news editors, advertisers,
and even their own viewers and inform them of the truth with accuracy (Kovach and Rosentiel
2007, 273). This is of particular importance when it comes to the impact of environmental issues
upon our civilization today.
The market does not, as it is so often said, provide citizens simply with the news they
want. They also get the news that Wall Street, ownership, journalist training, the cultural norms
of each medium, and the conventions of news dictate what be made available to them. If this is to
change and if the principle that the journalist’s primary allegiance is to the citizens is to have
meaning, a new relationship between the journalist and the citizen must evolve (Kovach and
Rosentiel 2007, 285).

Journalism’s first loyalty is to people living in our democracy. The public has legal rights
to participate in environmental decisions being made by the government, these rights align with
the democratic principles of transparency, direct participation, and accountability (Cox and
Pezzullo 2016, 291). Journalists have to make an effort to understand the whole community and
43
provide them with the information they need to self-govern. Ignoring the environmental roots of
so many daily news stories is an injustice to the communities we pledge to serve.
This responsibility falls not only on the shoulders of beat reporters and journalists, but
also on managers who assign stories and offer direction to, and guide the voice of, their
publications.
With an environmental issue as pressing as the emergence of the Anthropocene, editors
of every newsroom across genres would be wise to hire an environmental beat reporter to be
telling environmental stories that apply to their media outlet, be it through the lens of news,
sports, or entertainment. Cooking shows would find great storylines as agriculture suffers with
low levels of honeybee pollination. Home Improvement shows could source hardwood floors
from salvaged wood, eco-friendly paint, and local materials. The examples are endless, and
relatively unexplored.
Most discussions of public opinion on wildlife and environmental issues like climate
change, assume a simple dynamic in which the public learns about the issue through media
coverage. The public takes its cues from trustworthy sources assumed to be informed about an
issue that is able to provide guidance on how to think about it (Wolinsky-Nahmias 2015, 121).
Faces of pop culture have used their celebrity successfully in the environmental sector.
It’s a template that is so effective that the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute
conducted a study that identified celebrities that citizens found particularly influential
(Wolinsky-Nahmias 2015, 207). It is now time for environmental stories to cross into the pop
culture sector. And it is up to journalists to usher in this new wave of mainstream environmental
storytelling.
44
To limit important environmental information to the intellectual elite does a disservice to
people in this country, and around the world. Science journals leave out the general public from
their targeted audience, but this comes at a price. Without this knowledge, the general public has
the power – albeit ignorantly and unknowingly – to hold back science. Journalists in all genres of
storytelling must begin to communicate between these two worlds to bridge this gap.
Time is running out, for mountain lions, turtles, and humans alike.

45
Bibliography
Interviews
All quotations are from personal interviews conducted by the author, except where
noted.

Brenda Barnette. January 31, 2019.
Justin Brown. March 12, 2019.
Vince D’Elia. March 16, 2019.
Suzanne MacDonald. March 16, 2019.
Beth Pratt. November 30, 2019.
Clark Stevens. June 7, 2019.
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—. 2019. "NEWS RELEASE Mountain Lion P-61 Killed Crossing 405 Freeway." National Park
Service. September 9. https://www.nps.gov/samo/learn/news/mountain-lion-p-61-
killed-crossing-405-freeway.htm.
47
—. 2019. "Two Year Coyote Scat Project Ends with Over 3,000 Specimens Collected." National
Park Service. March 8. https://www.nps.gov/samo/learn/news/two-year-coyote-scat-
project-ends-with-over-3-000-specimens-collected.htm.
Palmer, Matt. 2012. "Discovering Urban Biodiversity." The Nature of Cities 1.
Save LA Cougars. 2019. Save LA Cougars. https://savelacougars.org/.
Solly, Meilan. 2019. "California Will Build the Largest Wildlife Crossing in the World Read more:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/california-will-build-largest-wildlife-
crossing-world-180972947/#14r35KzAoj56R8w4.99 Give the gift of Smithsonian
magazine for only $12! ." Smithsonian. August 21.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/california-will-build-largest-wildlife-
crossing-world-180972947/.
Telegraph Reporters. 2019. The Telegraph. August 8.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/08/31/donald-trump-says-loves-daughter-
tiffany-aide-claims-avoids/.
Wolinsky-Nahmias, Yael. 2015. Changing Climate Politics. Los Angeles: SAGE.

48
Appendix A
Table A.1
Categories Total Percentage
#4 - Trespassing 29 49%
#1 – Positive/Neutral Bias -
“Kittens”
27 46%
#1 - Other 3 5%
Total 59 100%

Table A.2
Categories Total Percentage
#12 – Mention Extinction 13 23%
#12 – Didn’t Mention
Extinction
44 77%
Total 57 100%

Table A.3
Categories Total Percentage
#8 – Mention Human Health 0 0%
#12 – Don’t Mention Human
Health
57 100%
Total 57 100%

49
Categories
#1 Anything Bias? Positive, Negative or N/A for Neutral Portrayal of
Cougars
#2 Mention Hunting?
#3 Describing Cougars Using the Word “Pest”?
#4 Mention Trespassing?
#5 Mention Property Damage by Cougars?
#6 Sympathize with Cougars?
#7 Mention the Role of the Apex Predator?
#8 Mention Human Health or Link to Lime Disease?
#9 Mention Fear?
#10 Mention Government Sanctioned Killing or Relocation?
#11 Allude to Animal Being a Nuisance to Human Activity?
#12 Mention their Impending Extinction?

50
Raw Data
CATAGORIES
STORY LINK
#
#1
#
#2
#
#3
#
#4
#
#5
#
#6
#
#7
#
#8
#
#9
#
#10
#
#11
#
#12
NBC
TOTAL # OF
STORIES: 24

https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/news/local
/Mountain-Lion-Breaks-
into-Brentwood-
Home_Los-Angeles-
492561051.html
N
N/A
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/multimedi
a/Mountain-Lion-Kittens-
Found-Cute-P-National-
Park-Service-Santa-
Monica-Mountains-
492421651.html

P
POS
ITIV
E
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/news/local
/Mountain-Lion-
Smashed-Through-a-
Window-of-a-Brentwood-
Home-492491651.html

N
NEG
ATI
VE
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/news/local
/Mountain-Lion-That-
Twice-Crossed-101-
Freeway-Found-Dead-
489146841.html

P
POS
ITIV
E
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/news/calif
ornia/Mountain-Lion-
Caught-on-Camera-in-
San-Mateo-
490395611.html

N
NEG
ATI
VE
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/news/local
/Mountain-Lion-Kittens-
Simi-Hills-California-
P
POS
ITIV
E
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
51
Den-Video-
485934471.html

https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/news/local
/Mountain-Lion-Love-to-
Purr-at-Free-P-22-Fest-
498161501.html

P
POS
ITIV
E
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/news/local
/Mountain-Lion-Hike-
498258451.html

P
POS
ITIV
E
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/news/local
/Mountain-Lions-Santa-
Monica-Mountains-
Woolsey-Fire-
500743602.html

P
POS
ISTI
VE
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/news/calif
ornia/San-Jose-to-Protect-
Wildlife-from-Roadkill-
Road-485451671.html

P
POS
ISTI
VE
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/news/local
/DNA-Test-Proves-
Mountain-Lion-Alive-
485171531.html

P
POS
ISTI
VE
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/news/local
/Run_-Doggy_-Run_-
Brave-Pups-Corner-
Mountain-Lion_Los-
Angeles-484008051.html

P
POS
ISTI
VE
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/news/natio
nal-international/Cyclists-
Tried-to-Scare-Cougar-
but-it-Attacked-Killing-1-
483164001.html

N
NEG
ATI
VE
Y
YE
S
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/news/natio
nal-international/Cougar-
Kills-Mountain-Biker-
Near-Seattle-
483143531.html
N
NEG
ATI
VE
Y
YE
S
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/news/local
/What-SoCal-Locals-
Saw-During-the-Nature-
Challenge-
482235461.html

P
POS
ITIV
E
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
52
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/multimedi
a/Three-Separately-
Rescued-Mountain-Lions-
Now-a-Family-at-
Oakland-Zoo-
480941651.html

P
POS
ITIV
E
Y
YE
S
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/news/calif
ornia/Future-of-San-
Diego-Animal-Services-
Uncertain--
480298043.html

N
N/A
Y
YE
S
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/multimedi
a/Wildlife-Photos-
California-Remote-
Cameras-Los-Angeles-
Mountain-Lions-Skunks-
Deer--498218401.html

N
N/A
Y
YE
S
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/news/calif
ornia/Mountain-Lion-
Strolls-Through-San-
Mateo-Neighborhood-
493769331.html

N
N/A
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/news/local
/Mountain-Lion-
Smashed-Through-a-
Window-of-a-Brentwood-
Home-492491651.html

N
NEG
ATI
VE
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/multimedi
a/Mountain-Lion-Kittens-
Found-Cute-P-National-
Park-Service-Santa-
Monica-Mountains-
492421651.html
P
POS
ISTI
VE
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/news/calif
ornia/Mountain-Lion-
Caught-on-Camera-in-
San-Mateo-
490395611.html
N
N/A
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/news/local
/Mountain-Lion-That-
Twice-Crossed-101-
Freeway-Found-Dead-
489146841.html

P
POS
ISTI
VE
Y
YE
S
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
53
https://www.nbcl
osangeles.com/multimedi
a/Mountain-Lion-Kittens-
Den-Video_Los-Angeles-
485933312.html
P
POS
ISTI
VE
Y
YE
S
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES

FOX
TOTAL # OF
STORIES: 3

http://www.foxla
.com/news/local-
news/mountain-lion-
spotted-in-azusa-
neighborhood

N
N/A
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO
http://www.foxla
.com/news/cougar-
attacks-mountain-bikers-
killing-one

N
NEG
ATI
VE
Y
YE
S
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO
http://www.foxla
.com/news/orphaned-
mountain-lion-cubs-find-
new-home-at-oakland-zoo

N
N/A
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO

KTLA
TOTAL # OF
STORIES: 15

https://ktla.com/
2018/10/17/official-
euthanize-mountain-lion-
cub-who-wandered-into-
norcal-bakery/

P
POS
ISTI
VE
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
https://ktla.com/
2018/09/04/litter-of-4-
mountain-lion-kittens-
discovered-in-santa-
monica-mountains/

P
POS
ITIV
E
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
https://ktla.com/
2018/10/23/new-image-
of-101-freeway-wildlife-
P
POS
ITIV
E
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
54
crossing-unveiled-in-
agoura-hills/

https://ktla.com/
2018/08/02/mountain-
lion-cub-takes-up-
residence-in-pacific-
palisades-backyard/

P
POS
ITIV
E
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
https://ktla.com/
2018/07/25/p-55-first-
known-mountain-lion-to-
cross-101-freeway-twice-
found-dead/

N
N/A
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
N/A
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
https://ktla.com/
2018/07/26/mountain-
lion-infiltrates-horse-
sanctuary-near-malibu/

N
NEG
ATI
VE
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
https://ktla.com/
2018/04/19/bear-caught-
on-video-romping-
through-altadena-
backyard-as-grandma-
frantically-pulls-away-
granddaughter/

N
N/A
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
https://ktla.com/
2018/03/26/mountain-
lion-spotted-in-
backyards-of-azusa-
homes/

N
NEG
ATI
VE
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
https://ktla.com/
2018/03/13/rare-sighting-
of-mountain-lion-
crossing-beneath-101-
freeway-near-agoura-
hills-national-park-
service/

N
N/A
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
https://ktla.com/
2018/02/19/mountain-
lion-carcass-found-at-
lake-arrowhead-home-2-
arrested-sheriffs-dept/

N
N/A
Y
YE
S
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
N/A
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
https://ktla.com/
2018/02/13/another-
mountain-lion-spotted-
roaming-through-
westlake-village-
neighborhood/

N
NEG
ATI
VE
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO
https://ktla.com/
2018/02/10/mountain-
lion-treated-for-burns-in-
thomas-fire-integrates-
into-new-home-at-
P
POS
ITIV
E
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
55
sonoma-county-rescue-
facility/

https://ktla.com/
2018/02/01/mountain-
lion-p-23-struck-and-
killed-by-vehicle-in-
malibu-area/

N
N/A
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
N/A
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
https://ktla.com/
2018/01/28/santa-monica-
park-officials-post-video-
of-mountain-lion-kittens-
chirping-for-mom/

P
POS
ITIV
E
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
https://ktla.com/
2018/02/06/westlake-
village-residents-get-
close-up-view-of-
mountain-lion/

N
NEG
ATI
VE
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO

LA TIMES
TOTAL # OF
STORIES: 15

https://www.lati
mes.com/local/lanow/la-
me-ln-new-mountain-
lion-kittens-20180905-
story.html

P
POS
ITIV
E
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
https://www.lati
mes.com/local/lanow/la-
me-ln-puma-p55-remains-
20180725-story.html

N
N/A
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
ES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO
https://www.lati
mes.com/local/california/l
a-me-mountain-lion-
wildfires-20181118-
story.html

N
N/A
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
56
https://www.lati
mes.com/local/california/l
a-me-california-fires-
woolsey-hill-camp-eight-
of-13-lions-with-working-
collar-1542067929-
htmlstory.html
P
POS
ITIV
E
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
https://www.lati
mes.com/local/california/l
a-me-trail-fight-
20180912-story.html

N
N/A
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
N/A
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
https://www.lati
mes.com/sd-me-cougar-
killed-20161215-
story.html

P
POS
ITIV
E
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
https://www.lati
mes.com/local/lanow/la-
me-modoc-county-lion-
20181029-htmlstory.html

N
NEG
ATI
VE
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO
https://www.lati
mes.com/socal/la-canada-
valley-sun/news/tn-vsl-
me-new-mountain-lion-
20180725-story.html

P
POS
ITIV
E
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
https://www.lati
mes.com/ny-news-
mountain-lion-el-paso-
zoo-20181012-story.html

N
N/A
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
https://www.lati
mes.com/local/lanow/la-
me-ln-mountain-lion-
pleasanton-20181030-
story.html

P
POS
ITIV
E
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO
https://www.lati
mes.com/sd-cm-ram-
mountain-lion-101-
story.html

N
N/A
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO
https://www.lati
mes.com/sns-bc-us--
mountain-lion-kitten-
bratwurst-20181116-
story.html

N
N/A
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
57
https://www.lati
mes.com/sns-bc-us--
pleasanton-puma-
20181030-story.html

N
NEG
ATI
VE
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
https://www.lati
mes.com/local/lanow/la-
me-ln-mountain-lion-cub-
20181017-story.html

N
NEG
ATI
VE
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
N
NO
Y
YES
Y
YES
Y
YES
N
NO

Appendix B
Video 1 https://youtu.be/9dFuMN9a0q0

VISUALS: AUDIO:
Clip from CBS Broadcast of Black Bear
in family pool.
Voice of CBS Anchor: “They will never
forget when a large black bear decided to
take a dip in their pool and hang out…”

TV Snow / Quick Cut to next clip

Coyote Caution Sign Anchor Chuck Henry on-camera: “A
familiar threat to small pets, it’s the
coyote problem, and it’s growing…”

TV Snow / Quick Cut to next clip

Voice of NBC Anchor: “A mountain lion
caught roaming around, a man’s yard in
Burbank…”

White Text on Black Screen:
58
THEY TRESPASS AND CAUSE
PROPERTY DAMAGE

Beth Pratt on top on a scenic overlook in
Hollywood with the skyline of Los Angeles
behind him.
Beth Pratt: “There’s the second
largest city of the country… LA and we’re
in online territory…”

White Text on Black Screen:
LA’S WILDLIFE LIVE WITHIN THE
CITY

Two baby mountain lion cubs in the den
purring
Cubs purr, one cub violently roars
towards camera, // quick cut

LA City Skyline in Background with
white text over:
THE CITY’S APEX PREDATOR
THE MOUNTAIN LION
IS PREDICTED TO GO EXTINCT
WITHIN 50 YEARS

Mountain Lion scratching itself on a rock Voice of Beth Pratt:
“They have 50 years, at best, here.
If we don’t do something.”

Beth Pratt standing on bridge overlooking
heavy traffic on the 405 behind her.
Beth Pratt: “If you’re a mountain
lion, or a coyote, or a raccoon, or wildlife
you are… whether you’re in someone’s
backyard, you’re having across a road like
this, you’re having to cross a freeway, you
are having to adapt to human existence
continually.”

Dips to black.

End.

59
Video 2 https://youtu.be/9qB8eTFdXuk

VISUALS: AUDIO:
TS of rain drops on branch
Fountain blur in background

NATSOUND
WS of Visitors Center Voice of Beth Pratt:
“But what I do in LA – and this is
weird coming from somebody who’s
worked in Yellowstone and Yosemite –
but it’s the most inspirational I’ve ever
done.”

MS of Visitors Center Sign “And what we’re doing here,
where the number of partners is ensuring
that wildlife and more specifically”

Beth Pratt sit down interview “a mountain lion population, that’s
about to go extinct, if we don’t do
something thrives into the future”

Wide shot of National Park Service store “and we’re doing that in an urban
environment. I wrote a book a couple of
years ago”

TS of P-22 Mountain Lion Stuffed
Animal with GPS collar, camera moves, reveals
book on display with P-22 cover by Beth Pratt
“that started out as a book just on
California wildlife, but once I learned the
story of P22 he became the cover boy,
because it’s an incredible story.”

END.

60
Video 3 https://youtu.be/afyakId2tPo

VISUALS: AUDIO:
MS of American Flag blowing in wind

NAT SOUND
MS of National Park Service Logo on
Building
Voice of Justin Brown:
“So, I definitely deal with people
worrying about coyotes and what’s
occurring with them.”

WS of National Park Service
Headquarters
“A lot of times people think coyotes are
100-pound animals when they’re really
about a 25-pound animal”

Justin Brown on-camera interview “Certain times a year their prone to follow
somebody walking a dog, and it’s really
complex when it comes to the Canine
society bigger canids usually do kill
smaller canids. So, wolves kill coyotes,
coyotes kill foxes…”

Coyote running across mountain ledge onto
road
“but it gets complex, especially during
breeding season ‘cause all suddenly
there’s tons of people out there…”

Wide shot of coyote running down the middle
of the road
“walking their domestic dogs right near
other coyotes den sites. And so it gets
difficult because..”

Shot starts blurry and goes into focus. Coyote
is on ledge looking out at city.
“the coyotes don’t want those dogs near
their den sites so they’re kind of running
them off which then obviously, that dog is
with a person.”

Justin Brown on-camera interview “So it’s trying to run the person and the
dog off.”

61
Coyote on hill howling NATSOUND of coyote howling

END.

Video 4 https://youtu.be/nrbcMp2GwfE

VISUALS: AUDIO:
White text on black screen:
P-22 IS THE FIRST COUGAR TO
HAVE SUCCESSFULLY CROSSED BOTH
THE 101 AND THE 405 FREEWAYS IN LA
WITHOUT BEING KILLED.

Camera starts on Mulholland Overpass
sign and pans up to reveal Beth Pratt standing on
overpass looking at 405 freeway as cars speed
underneath her. Camera moves to shoot through
gate at cars and back to Beth.
Beth Pratt: “I’m standing right here,
looking at one of the busiest freeways in
the world and the traffic never stops on
the 405 and I can’t even imagine setting
foot down there, the somehow a month,
why in there to do it?

And that’s just amazing that he just has
such a drive to find a new home that he
braved the 405, which as we know most
of us want there’s a rule in LA. Never get
on the 405 and he did so.”

WS Beth, with a mountain lion stuffed
animal and life-size mountain lion cardboard cut
out strapped to her hiking backpack, hikes across
bridge

Medium Shot – stuffed animal head
bouncing
“So I wrote a book about P22 and I tried
to picture his journey through his eyes and
after having walked this on foot…

I’m just imagining this cat, literally of an
ancient species pulled over from the last
ice age and, again, he’s sort of wandering
through some open space. He seen houses
here, they were a road here there but very
62
abruptly, he has then faced all of a sudden
on his journey with this!”

MS of Mountain Lion stepping off of log And his big paws that are padded more for
rock and natural places. I’m picturing him
coming to this place and those first steps
he takes with his case feeling the
vibrations of traffic and not knowing if
you should go further, but knowing he has
to.”

END
Video 5 https://youtu.be/QvCzD0d0Cj0

VISUALS: AUDIO:
TS of Turtle and Frog Crossing Sign

KEY: Toronto, Canada
Voice of Vince D’Elia:

“This road was I guess in terms of where a
road should be built is one on the worst
places you could build a road.”

Camera pans down and sits on gravel
shoulder. Gravel in foreground, car tires speeding past
in background.
“The road is actually dividing a wetland
complex it actually divides the complex
right in half, so you have actually
fragmented the habitat here which at one
time was one entire habitat.”

POV shot through front car window driving
down highway in Toronto with iconic CN tower in
front
“all 8 species of turtles that are found in
Ontario are now recognized as at risk
species”
POV drive by shot through side passenger
window of Canadian Flag blowing in wind
“In your car, these are things that you
won’t notice. We’re not talking about
larger wildlife…”
3 images of turtles squished on the road
appear one after the other

“where you’ll see larger mammals that
have been hit on the side of road. You
don’t see these are a little squishes on the
road, unfortunate that’s what they are.
63
Every little squish that you see on the
road…”
POV driving by City of Brampton Sign

“every little stain and pay a little more
attention when you’re driving and then…”

3 project managers wear safety vests on the
side of the road, in the winter, wind is blowing, they
are handing out coffees as cars drive by beside them.

TS of Tim Hortons Coffee cup in gloved hand

“you’ll start seeing the skin, the
fragments, every one of those stains
represents some wildlife that interacted
with a vehicle”
On-Camera Interview with Suzanne
MacDonald
“So the number one issue in urban areas
for wildlife people would think it’s
pollution or lack of food, or whatever. It’s
not that it’s the roads. So cars are the
biggest predator. Now cars are apex
predator in urban areas, that’s the same
for every species. Elephants in Kenya get
hit by cars. And when that happens, you
can imagine the people in the car don’t
really survive either.”

Mountain Lion stuffed animal in front dash of
car. Windshield wipers are on in BG.

KEY: LOS ANGELES, USA

NATSOUND: Music playing on radio
MS of Beth Driving. Rain drops on her side
window
Voice of Beth:
“So we know how solve this. So that’s
what’s great about this. This isn’t rocket
science, so to speak. Wildlife crossings
are nothing new. The United States is a
little behind some other countries, but
catching up.”

TS of Beth’s hands on steering wheel of car,
Prius logo.

“But we're taking that a step further here,
we're saying not only is it okay that this
mount lines living in LA, but we wanna
ensure they stay in this area by building a
60 million dollar crossing. And so, this is
really visionary, it's never been done
before.”

Justin Brown on-camera interview

“The awesome thing about this bridge that
we're trying to get build over the 11 is it
will, it'll help everything from the smallest
64
animals such as reptiles, small mammals
small lizards, snakes all those species,
they should feel use it to some level. The
one - we need many, many of those. If
you wanted to make it super effective for
all species, to keep all species
interconnected, but even the one bridge
will make a difference for a lot of these
animals, 'cause at least genetics can
spread across our mountains.”

Beth Pratt on-camera interview

Cover some with b-roll of Beth at Hollywood
Bowl overlook, looking out at the skyline and
highway below, where P-22 lives. Cut back to
interview.
“So this crossing also will be the biggest
in the world. I listen, I'd love it to be
smaller. But we are putting it over the 101
freeway which is 10 lanes of traffic plus
an access road 300,000 cars a day will be
going under this crossing. But it's not just
the big ones, right? You have in Toronto
crossings for turtles…”

KEY: TORONTO, CANADA

Camera pan from snow on ground to Vince
standing next to turtle fence that leads to overpass,
next to busy road.
Vince:
“ So over here. This is the specialized
wildlife directional fencing that we've
installed as part of this mitigation project
This fencing here, as I said,,,”

Photos of Frogs and Turtles using the fencing

“it is a special product it's designed
specifically to direct wildlife and help
mitigate these to situations and what it
does is it provides a barrier for wildlife
that approach this area here, and it's put
place in angle to direct the wildlife, to the
proper passage that we've installed
here…”

Vince actuality interview, he walks us
through the fencing and points out the route wildlife
take.

“on the top of the fencing we have a flap
that goes over and this prevents wildlife
from trying to climb over the fencing and
into the... And then become exposed to
the roadside. It also provides opportunity
for why they that do that. I start coming
from the road area and climb over the
fencing and fall back into the mitigation.
So it is especially design fencing it's not
just any kind of fencing.”

65
Photos of wildlife crossing in operation
during the summer, with stream passing under.

“It comes in sections. So it provides
opportunity for management and can use
repair, as we go forward - because as we
can see here - these things do take quite a
bit of punishment”

TS of area where car slammed through
wildlife crossing fence when slid off road due to ice.

Vince takes a step and his foot falls through
the ice!

“As you can see over here, we have a
section of Fens and it's been damaged
during the winter months where a vehicle
has gone off the road and into the
wetlands.

Camera operator (me):
And will you bring us over to the tale?

Vince:
Definitely, so let me just see if it’s safe
here. (foot falls through ice) oh, I don't
think it's that safe.”

Cut to WS Vince standing on top of wildlife
crossing bridge.

MS
TS
“So the fencing that we install the wildlife
are guided to this tunnel here, they'll enter
the tunnel, from the east side of the Heart,
Lake Road and then they'll follow, make
their way underneath to the West side,
where there's some the other portion of
the fragmented Wetland Complex on the
other side of the road,”

Actuality of Vince and Colleague Dave trying
to cross road through traffic, in the snow storm, to see
other side of wildlife crossing.

Cars speed by.
“Let’s cross the road and see the other
side of the tunnel. Careful Dave, This road
can get pretty busy sometimes.

Let’s Cross now that we have a moment.”

MS of Dave installing camera in wildlife
tunnel.

TS of wildlife tracking camera.

“Being a highly urbanized here. Yeah,
we've had challenges. When we first
installed the camera here, they got stolen,
Yeah, so we did have to move the cameras
further into the tunnel.”

Flip through photos of different animals
Using the wildlife crossing – images from the
actual wildlife tracking camera.

“It becomes like a highway for a lot of the
mammals, you get images of raccoons,
possums,... You get images of critters
moving back and forth all day long”
66
WS of York University Campus with
Canadian Geese on snow outside

MS of Canadian Geese on Snow

TS
Voice of Suzanne MacDonald:
“It’s the same thing we would do with
elephants, just elephants. As on a larger
scale.
Suzanne sitting at her computer looking at
images.

TS of Suzanne Screen: Split screen of
Elephant Corridor and Turtle Corridor
“So this is an elephant under pass, so we
can see when the elephants actually use
the underpass under the road, and then
this is an image of the turtle corridor.
Doesn't look like much because it's snowy
and ice but you can see that it's essentially
the same as the elephant corridor. It's just
much smaller.”

END
Video 6 https://youtu.be/6eT1xlqDY4c

VISUALS: AUDIO:
Wide shot of Hollywood sign
Camera pulls out to reveal Beth Pratt
standing and pointing
Camera zooms in on TS of 101 Freeway

Beth Pratt “So, there's Griffith Park, there's
the Hollywood sign, everybody knows it, but
you have a mountain lion living right there
between 22 and Griffith Park. And then
further down, look, that's the 101 Freeway
right there that he had to cross to get there.
Just astounding...”

TS of 101 Freeway
NATSOUND
On-Camera Interview of Suzanne
MacDonald
Suzanne MacDonald: “It is awesome
that they're there. And every time I would
read in the paper that, oh, a mountain lion
was in Griffith Park, it's like, "Oh, that's
67
amazing." When you talk about apex
predators like that, they're the first to go. So
we're taking all the great whites sharks out
of the ocean, and we remove the wolves,
and we remove everything that we think is
causing, or tigers in India or whatever,
that's causing endanger to humans. And
when we do that, we change the ecosystem
irrevocably.”

On-camera interview of Beth Pratt
Beth Pratt: “What's interesting to me about
pulling predators out of ecosystems is we
have a lot of good science behind this, but in
areas like Yellowstone or a lot of more what
we call traditional wilderness areas, we don't
know everything that's gonna happen in
such an urban core. There could be
repercussions to us that are devastating that
we haven't even thought of yet, because it's
never happened yet.”

END

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Mainstream journalism has failed to recognize the importance of reporting on the plight wildlife face in our current environmental and climate crisis, in fact, many crucial stories are ignored. This is not only a failure of environmental journalism, but it exposes systemic problems with journalism itself

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Asset Metadata

Creator Sovani, Aliya (author)

Core Title Bridges to survival: journalism's duty to bring environmental and wildlife reporting into mainstream media during the Anthropocene

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Specialized Journalism

Publication Date 12/16/2019

Defense Date 12/15/2019

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag anthropocene,Bridges,cars,cities,cougar,crossing,environmental journalism,Los Angeles,mountain lion,Nature,OAI-PMH Harvest,panthers,reporting,Turtles,urban sprawl,urban wildlife,urbanization,Wildlife

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Mittelstaedt, Alan (committee chair), Sender, Stuart (committee member), Wolinsky-Nahmias, Yael (committee member)

Creator Email ajsovani@gmail.com,sovani@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-253724

Unique identifier UC11673132

Identifier etd-SovaniAliy-8071.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-253724 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-SovaniAliy-8071.pdf

Dmrecord 253724

Document Type Thesis

Rights Sovani, Aliya

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA