02/12/2026
TERA applauds the decision of The California Department of Fish and Wildlife to designate six identified mountain lion populations as threatened under the California Endangered Species Act. This is a critical decision for the most widely distributed apex predator in California as well as in the entire Western Hemisphere.
Genetic and landscape studies have found that mountain lions in Southern California and the Central Coast are isolated by urban development, freeways leading it's not just a tragic accidents, but to low genetic diversity and inbreeding in numerous groups.
What the protection will mean under CESA is that developers will have to minimize impacts on the protected mountain lion habitats. Activities that exacerbate habitat fragmentation will be minimized. This includes (but is not limited to) highway and road construction, urban and suburban development and commercial industrial infrastructure.
Mountain lions rely on large connected tracts of land, the ability for young males to disperse across large territories and distances, and of course, the genetic exchange between populations.
As seen in the Santa Monica Mountains, when inbreeding increases, then survival of mountain, lions decline overall and the entire populations become vulnerable to local extinction.
The specific Mountain Lion populations granted for protection are the following:
Santa Cruz Mountains (sometimes included in the Central Coast North region)
Central Coast (general region including habitat from San Francisco Bay southward)
Santa Monica Mountains
San Gabriel & San Bernardino Mountains
Santa Ana Mountains
Eastern Peninsular Ranges (near the U.S.–Mexico border region)
Those in opposition to the inclusion of mountain lions in CESA have displayed a paucity of knowledge and empathy. Humans with large families and aggressive property developers cannot keep encroaching onto and building into the undeveloped wilderness. The health of our forests, mountains, chapprell and grasslands are dependent on the mountain lion's apex predator status.
Without mountain lions, deer populations skyrocket, leading to overgrazing of native plants, degrade of riparian habitat and thus biodiversity declines and in some cases will collapse. When young male mountain lions dispersed naturally instead of being forced into the edges of suburbia, then vehicle collisions with deer are greatly redu reduced.
Deer are the leading animal related cause of death in the United States because of vehicle collisions.
