Big cats, bigger protections: Santa Cruz County mountain lions now listed as threatened

Whether slipping through redwoods at dawn or prowling after dark, a puma in the Santa Cruz Mountains doesn’t get far before running into something man-made — a highway, a subdivision or a stretch of fenced private land. That constant confinement helped push the California Fish and Game Commission to grant six Central Coast and Southern California lion populations new threatened-species protections earlier this month. 

The action formalizes concerns scientists have had for years: Coastal lions are increasingly isolated from each other in smaller groups, and their gene pools are shrinking. A 2020 petition turned that mounting body of research into a legal push for protections, setting the listing process in motion. The new designation provides “additional protections to aid in the recovery of the species,” the commission said in a statement, though it “does not fundamentally change how the CDFW [California Department of Fish and Wildlife] manages mountain lions across California.” Even so, in Santa Cruz County, where housing demand presses against the urban-wildland edge and roads carve up key habitat, that added layer of protection could shape how predators and people share the landscape.

Few people have tracked that tension more closely than UC Santa Cruz wildlife ecologist Chris Wilmers, who leads the long-running Santa Cruz Puma Project, a partnership between the university and the state. He called the listing “the appropriate thing to do,” emphasizing that it’s a long-overdue course correction for a species becoming gradually boxed in.

Beginning in 2008, Wilmers and colleagues across California have spent years pooling data to understand just how isolated these cats have become. Wilmers said mountain lions are in trouble in this part of California “because of the ways we’ve been developing the landscape without thinking about the needs of the environment and wildlife,” making it increasingly difficult for them to roam freely through the range. 

That loss of movement is already rippling through the population. When lions can’t safely disperse to find unrelated mates, they not only breed with close relatives but are forced into close quarters with intensely territorial males. These encounters sometimes end in serious injury or death. Over time, these factors shrink genetic diversity — and as diversity drops, harmful traits become more likely to surface and spread. The result can be a downward genetic spiral: smaller, more inbred populations that are less healthy and less resilient to disease, environmental change or other pressures.

Scientists are spotting early warning signs. In the Santa Cruz Mountains, researchers have documented pumas with kinked tails, a visible marker linked to inbreeding. In Southern California populations, studies have also found malformed sperm and testicular defects — reproductive problems tied to low genetic variability. “It could be happening here as well, we just don’t know,” Wilmers said. 

To quantify these observations, scientists calculate “the number of breeding adults who could contribute new genes to the next generation,” Wilmers said, which “gives you an idea of the population’s long-term ability to persist.” In the Santa Cruz Mountains, that number hovers around 16, far below the short-term survival threshold of 50, according to the Puma Project’s research.

The crisis faced by Florida panthers in the Everglades shows what can happen when that number falls too low. That highly inbred population of mountain lions nearly went extinct in the mid-1990s because of inbreeding. Cases like this illustrate the risks populations face when genetic diversity dwindles.

Some of the pressure stems from how and where California builds and grows. “At the state level, we really need to do a better job of developing in appropriate places,” Wilmers said. He pointed to Santa Cruz County’s Urban and Rural Services Lines, which separate urban areas with utilities from rural, low-density zones, as a model for limiting sprawl before it pushes deeper into natural systems. Many counties, he added, lack similar guardrails. “It’s not only bad for our wildlife … but it feeds into our climate system. It feeds into our forest fire system. It’s a huge contributor to greenhouse gases and the fact that California is burning hotter and more frequently than ever.”

Even with restrictions on development, the mountain lion’s habitat is fragmented. The Land Trust of Santa Cruz County has acquired key parcels, including Estrada Ranch and Rocks Ranch. This is part of a broader effort with state agency Caltrans to build a wildlife bridge over Highway 101 reconnecting the Gabilán Range in San Benito County with the Santa Cruz Mountains. According to Caltrans, the corridor will allow animals to move more safely between the two critical habitats and is expected to “reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions and improve driver safety.” 

Bryan Largay, the land trust’s conservation director, said the state’s threatened listing and local conservation efforts, including his team’s current projects, are “very complementary to each other.” While the land trust negotiates with willing landowners to create “win-win projects,” the state enforces regulations that make it illegal to harm protected animals.

Living with lions

This progress toward better-connected habitats for mountain lions has some developers worried that the new listing could slow growth or create additional hurdles to building. In a letter to state officials, the California Building Industry Association and the Building Industry Association of Southern California warned that the state’s habitat maps could trigger additional environmental studies or mitigation requirements under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) if a proposed project overlaps with designated areas.

Now that mountain lions are listed as threatened in Santa Cruz County, that review process is likely to carry greater weight. Impacts that might have been once considered insignificant could face closer scrutiny — and potentially require mitigation — during CEQA review, raising concerns among developers about added costs, delays and uncertainty.

Daniel Applebee, a CDFW environmental scientist, said the environmental review process will remain the same, but outcomes might be different and require more from developers. Still, he emphasized that the core goal remains consistent: “It’s still about maintaining large patches of suitable habitat and, more importantly, maintaining connectivity between those patches.”

Ranchers, too, worry the listing could escalate an already tense situation. BJ Burns, a farmer who grows oat hay, pumpkins and flowers and raises cattle in Pescadero, north of the Santa Cruz-San Mateo county line, called the decision unfair to both landowners and the cats. He argues that the lion population in his area and statewide is already too large and poorly managed. Drawing on trail camera footage and conversations with other farmers, Burns said lions appear on ranches more often than many people realize: One rancher he knows documented 14 different lions on a trail camera, while another captured six.

“They’re taking the deer, they’re taking our wildlife, and pretty soon they’re going to be more in the cities,” he said. As president of the San Mateo County Farm Bureau, Burns has seen goats, sheep, and cattle lost to predators. He added that suggestions to improve livestock husbandry practices, such as building roofed enclosures, is unrealistic on large ranches where animals roam across acres of pasture. 

Still, he insists he is not opposed to the mountain lions themselves and points to the way the state manages deer with regulated seasons and population controls as a model for addressing conflict. “I know some don’t care because there’s so much love for the lion,” Burns said. “I don’t mind the lion. But manage the lion so we can all coexist.”

Applebee said the threatened listing doesn’t change existing protections for ranchers under Proposition 117: those who lose livestock to mountain lions can still request depredation permits, which allows a rancher or a hired agent to kill the specific predator that the CDFW finds responsible for the livestock kill. Officials generally encourage non-lethal deterrence first, but the permit provides a legal pathway to kill the offending animal if losses continue.

The voices of ranchers and farmers are important in these conversations, especially because they “are an asset to the state of California and keeping land open and undeveloped,” said Applebee. “It’s personal, and we understand that, and we try to be sensitive to that.” 

Concerns remain, but so do the long-term survival and connectivity challenges facing the cats. The new listing doesn’t settle those questions, but it does make one thing clear: The future of mountain lions in the Santa Cruz Mountains will hinge on how communities balance both human needs and the genetic realities shaping the region’s surviving mountain lions.

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