Wildlife

A wildlife rescue group has asked state parks officials to post signs at Point Dume to warn visitors against interfering with the numerous sea lions that have come ashore to get a rest from stormy seas. Rebecca Dymtryk, executive director of Malibu-based Wildlife Emergency Response, said Wednesday that about 70 California sea lions, or about three times the normal number, are taking refuge on Point Dume this year because of El Nino storms.

Counting desert tortoises is harder than you might think. Although far from being fleet-footed, they blend in, they burrow, they hibernate. But researchers say that if there was ever a year to determine how many of the imperiled species are left in the wilderness, this is it. Winter storms catered a buffet of grasses and wildflowers that should lure tortoises aboveground.

The herd of horses roaming wild on Santa Cruz Island will be allowed to remain for at least a few more months until a federal appeals court decides their fate. The National Park Service and some of the island's former owners contend that 15 horses stand in the way of a plan to restore the island's natural habitat and are seeking to bring them to the mainland.

The electrified fences around 25 of California's toughest prisons are doing what they were designed to do--keeping the cons inside. But there's an unwanted side effect--they have killed more than 3,000 birds unfortunate enough to fly into the sizzling webs. After lengthy negotiations, an end to the carnage is in sight--nets have been put up at 13 of the 25 prisons to keep the birds off the wires. The birds are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, said U.S.

John James Audubon, the American naturalist, is famous for his bird paintings. But who has ever heard of Sarah Stone or George Abbot? Stone and Abbot were among the earliest illustrators of America's wildlife. But for more than a century, they've been recognized by only a handful of specialists. The Natural History Museum in London, which has half a million works illustrating nature, is resurrecting the pair and other unfamiliar artists in a series of 11 projected books called "Art of Nature."

Oil that is threatening hundreds of birds in the fragile Bolsa Chica wetlands may have come from a facility operated by the city of Garden Grove 10 miles inland from the fragile coastal marshes, investigators said Monday.

The Bolsa Chica wetlands, famous as a haven for rare birds, turned unnaturally treacherous Sunday when waters coated by an oil spill endangered dozens of birds and mobilized a major rescue drama. Rescue workers scooped oil-doused ducks and grebes from a flood-control channel, racing against the clock to find injured wildlife before darkness fell and plunging temperatures further threatened the birds.

Garden Grove officials said Tuesday that they suspect someone entered a city yard and dumped the oil that now threatens to kill hundreds of birds 13 miles away in the sensitive Bolsa Chica wetlands. As cleanup crews began flushing water into the oil-fouled channel linking Garden Grove with the ocean, investigators collected evidence ranging from laboratory results to surveillance videotapes in hopes of finding the "midnight dumper."

Forty-two children will converge at Sunland Recreation Center tonight for a free overnight camp-out. The goal of the Wonderful Outdoor World camp-out is to interest youngsters in outdoor recreation and teach them about the natural environment, said Mona Curry, recreation director at the center. "Children in this area, they don't have the opportunity to camp," she said. Among those who have rarely or ever camped out is 9-year-old Kurt Davidson of Tujunga. "It'll be fun," he said.

With the arrival this week of the summer's first 100-plus-degree temperatures, an irony is taking hold of the High Desert. It is a kind of winter, at least as winter is understood in colder climates, that is, as the season of slowdown, inwardness, and the conserving of resources to preserve life. "In the desert, our summer is sort of like their January in the East," David Numer says.