Santa Monica Mountains

Authorities say they have removed about 3,500 marijuana plants found growing in sensitive parkland in the Santa Monica Mountains. The National Park Service said Wednesday that trash, pipes, camping equipment, fertilizer and pesticides also were removed Tuesday from three plantations. Two were in Malibu Creek State Park and one in the Zuma-Trancas Canyon area.

In the end, the mountain lion was probably looking for a place to call his own. Scientists believe the male mountain lion roamed his way down the Santa Monica Mountains early Tuesday, likely following a runoff channel. When daylight broke, he found himself in the middle of the city and scared. The lion was 3, and experts said that was the age to carve out his own territory. "These young guys are looking for a home of their own," said Jeff Sikich, a biologist with the National Park Service.

Armed with small plastic vials and insect nets, a group of youngsters and some accompanying adults trudged through an area of the Santa Monica Mountains on Saturday, turning over rocks, picking through long grass and rustling bushes. They were looking for spiders. "He's found one!" someone yelled as 5-year-old Austin Weske showed off the first capture of the day: a dull brown creature. Researcher Anna Holden, leading the expedition, said it was a wolf spider, a species known to be a good hunter that runs along the ground in search of prey.

No one is exactly sure how a mountain lion roamed into the heart of Santa Monica on Tuesday morning, coming face to face with the janitor of an office complex not far from the city's bustling shopping district. But it turned out to be an unwelcome visitor - and that generated much debate in the city. With news choppers circling overhead, Santa Monica police managed to corner the 3-year-old lion in the courtyard of the complex. Police said they made several attempts to contain what they described as an aggressive feline using tranquilizing darts, nonlethal bullets and a fire hose.

It was your typical 1960s stucco home -- like thousands of others just like it on the streets of Southern California. What sold Sascha Jovanovic was not the home itself, but its breathtaking view. "I knew I could fix the house," Jovanovic says, "but you can't install a view." So he bought the Brentwood house, which steps down a Santa Monica Mountains hillside and opens to Malibu-to-Palos Verdes views, and he lived with uninspired architecture and an insufficient carport for five years before calling L.A. architect Lorcan O'Herlihy.

Long gone are the soldiers who kept guard at this former Army facility, searching the skies for Soviet planes that might soar in from the Pacific to bomb the city. Their weather-battered guard shack off a gravelly road in the steep hills behind Encino now has rusted window frames and a hole in one wall. But the radar tower still stands tall, overlooking the San Fernando Valley to the north and the central city to the southeast.

They're nearly always pregnant, like the mythical tribbles of "Star Trek" fame. They pass through gullets of fish unfazed. And they could bring disaster to native bugs, frogs and steelhead restoration efforts in the Santa Monica Mountains. New Zealand mudsnails have taken over four watersheds in the Santa Monica Mountains and are spreading fast, expanding from the first confirmed sample in Medea Creek in Agoura Hills to nearly 30 other stream sites in four years. The invasive species, found in many waterways in the U.S. West, the Great Lakes and Canada, reproduces asexually, so "it just takes one to infest a water body," said Mark Abramson, a stream restoration expert for the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission.

The county Board of Supervisors Tuesday launched a move to develop recreational facilities and programs at Tapia Regional County Park. The county is seeking a private company to design, develop and manage an "environmentally compatible" recreational facility at the park site. The park, on Las Virgenes Road four miles north of Malibu in the Santa Monica Mountains, is largely undeveloped. Proposals for leasing and developing the site are due by July 8, county officials said.

The National Park Service will hold a meeting Saturday on construction of a new Satwiwa Native American Indian Culture Center. The 6 p.m. meeting will be held at Rancho Sierra Vista/Satwiwa on Potrero Road in Newbury Park near the Wendy Drive exit of the Ventura Freeway. Rancho Sierra Vista/Satwiwa is part of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, a unit of the national park system.

The words "government efficiency" may seem like an oxymoron, but not in the case of the new Santa Monica Mountains interagency visitor center, set to open June 9 at King Gillette Ranch in Calabasas. The new headquarters for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area will also house the various agencies, all in one place, that manage the sprawling mountain range. Now that's efficient. Hikers, riders, campers and other outdoor lovers of the Santa Monica Mountains will have a bigger and better visitor center smack dab in the middle of the mountains and closer to some of the Santa Monicas' prime recreation spots.

Timothy Regler, an executive producer with "Judge Judy," has listed his house in Studio City at $4.495 million. The Mediterranean-style home, built in 2006, sits on a knoll in the Fryman Estates area and backs up to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. The 5,454-square-foot home, which has an Old World ambience, features five en suite bedrooms, two additional bathrooms, a wine cellar, four fireplaces, a den, a family room and an elevator. The third-acre lot includes a swimming pool and a patio fireplace.

A mountain lion found dead in the western Santa Monica Mountains was killed and mutilated by poachers, according to state fish and game wardens who are seeking tips in the case. "We're going to have to get lucky on this. There's virtually no forensic evidence," said Andrew Hughan, a spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Game. Investigators, he added, are hoping a member of the public will hear "somebody bragging about how they killed a mountain lion, and they'll call us" at (800)

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If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound? More to the point, if you roll past a stop sign in the woods and nobody is there to see it, do you get a ticket? You do if you're in one of the three Santa Monica Mountains parks overseen by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority where stop-sign scofflaws are on candid camera. The authority has set traps for unsuspecting motorists by installing video cameras at stop signs and mailing citations to those who fail to come to a complete halt.

The city of Los Angeles has ended its controversial red-light camera program, but motorists in the Santa Monica Mountains had better beware: Enforcement cameras are rolling on those leafy park roads. A traffic surveillance system installed at the behest of a little-known government body called the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority has generated thousands of traffic citations for visitors at Franklin Canyon Park, Temescal Gateway Park and the Top of Topanga Overlook.

Philanthropist Barbara Davis, the widow of billionaire Marvin Davis, has listed her Wilshire Corridor condominium for sale at $1,885,000. The unit, with views of the Santa Monica Mountains, has a direct entrance from a private elevator. A butler's pantry, a laundry room, two bedrooms and 21/2 bathrooms lie within in 2,527 square feet. Amenities at the 97-unit building called the Wilshire, built in 1991, include 24-hour valet, doormen, security, a gym and a pool. Barbara Davis chairs the Carousel of Hope Gala in Beverly Hills, held every two years, which raises money for childhood diabetes.

Let's have yet another round of applause for the fabulous, long-running Malibu morality play starring the eco-conscious U2 guitarist and international humanitarian who calls himself The Edge. After five years, it just keeps getting better. In the latest act, The Edge's considerable entourage of lawyers, lobbyists, flacks and assorted rabble have struck a sweet deal with the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy that has the locals in a dither. In 2009, the conservancy acted as a noble steward of the public interest when it slammed the colony that The Edge and his associates want to build atop a prominent undeveloped ridgeline near Malibu.