What did the Los Angeles Basin look like before Spanish colonization transformed it? KCET.org's SoCal Focus blog looks at Southern California's native landscape as well as L.A.'s enduring relationship with nature:
A series of recent news headlines have reminded us that our city—often associated with brown skies, high-speed pavement, and its concrete river—still maintains an intimate relationship with nature.
Throughout the summer, spooked residents of Burbank and Glendale reported at least five mountain lion sightings. "I have a 4-year-old daughter and 10-year-old girl," one man told the Los Angeles Times. "I am just seriously scared." Then, on August 30, a cougar sprinting across the 405 freeway in the Santa Monica Mountains was struck and killed by rush hour traffic. Most recently, L.A. County officials struggled with the fate of a pack of coyotes that moved into an abandoned Glendale house.
For those living on the edge between L.A.'s urban sprawl and the surrounding undeveloped mountains, such encounters may be an unavoidable but frightening reminder of wild nature's proximity, like the firestorms that occasionally turn the brown slopes red. For residents of the vast flatlands of L.A., though, these headlines also serve as a reminder of the landscape destroyed by more than 240 years of settlement.
Keep reading the full post at KCET.org.