Urbanization of Rolling Hills : Wildlife Drop Spurs Preservation Study

Buffalo never roamed Rolling Hills, but old-timers recall road runners, coyotes and an abundance of quail. In the early part of the century, before home building started on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, there were even deer.

Why have they disappeared? Urbanization, wildlife partisans say.

Development in the small, gated city of 2,095 has destroyed natural habitats, and predators--including household pets and wild dogs and cats--prey upon animals, scare birds away and eat their eggs, contends Flavio Bisignano, a businessman who has lived in the city for nearly 25 years.

“We’ve definitely seen a falloff,” said Tom Duddleson, a contractor who has lived on the Peninsula for 40 years, 18 of them in Rolling Hills. “We don’t see any quail in our canyons at all. We could hear them calling until seven or eight years ago.”

Foxes in Driveway

Another longtime resident, photographer Herb Agid, said he saw quail and foxes in his driveway five years ago. “Now there are three or four dogs, chasing birds and each other,” he said.

To some extent, the change in wildlife patterns reflects a change in the kind of person who moves to Rolling Hills. When homes were first built there in 1936, it was promoted as a sort of “dude ranch,” as a brochure described it then.

But these days, “people are not calling about putting in barns or corrals,” City Manager Terrence L. Belanger said. “They are calling about putting in tennis courts or putting greens. This is the way Rolling Hills is evolving.”

There are still skunks, raccoons, foxes and opossums roaming the hills, but can something be done to bring back lost wildlife? Is the decline in the number of native creatures the inevitable price for larger houses, more people and domestic dogs and cat? And how many people really care?

These are some of the questions being posed by an eight-member citizens Wildlife Preservation Committee appointed by the City Council after Bisignano raised the issue at a council meeting. In addition to Bisignano, Duddleson and Agid, the committee includes Don Gales, Christa Hawkins, Pam Munroe, Dotha Welbourn and Arvel Witte, chairman.

The group will try to determine the extent of the loss of wildlife and whether it occurred naturally or was caused by an increase in predators, development, “or the insensitivity of human beings,” said Mayor Gordana Swanson.

Survey Planned

She said the council wants “recommendations from the committee on those measures that can be implemented to preserve, restore and protect wildlife species and habitats throughout the city.” She added that the city has reached a point where proposals for larger developments must be balanced against the need to preserve the city’s rural environment and the wildlife that goes with it.

The first step will be a survey sent out at the end of the month to all 670 homes in the city. Among other things, it asks residents about their knowledge of nature and wildlife, how many horses or other animals they have, what animals and birds they see on their property or in their neighborhood and their attitudes about trapping and removing skunks, peafowl and wild dogs.

Another question gets to the heart of the issue by asking people how interested they are in preserving wildlife. The choice of answers is “highly,” “somewhat,” “don’t care” or “get rid of them.”

Gales, a retired meteorologist and naturalist who is vice chairman of the committee, said the purpose of the survey is “to make people aware of what’s around them, find out how many people are interested, what they’re doing about it and how much they know.”

He said he doesn’t think many people will mark “get rid of them” on the survey. People live in Rolling Hills because they like animals, Gales said.

Wildlife or Pets

“We’d like to create a ‘preserve’ attitude in the community,” Belanger said during a committee meeting. But at the same time, he said, the city may face a choice between wildlife or domestic pets--mainly dogs and cats--that he said are the main predators.

In discussions at two meetings, the committee has raised possibilities as far-reaching as a “no-growth” policy or as simple as instituting a leash law--though the latter is a touchy issue in Rolling Hills, where dogs and cats are permitted to roam.

“I’m tired of dogs swimming in my fish pond and going in the Jacuzzi,” Munroe said.

Agid said that perhaps people should be asked to control their cats and dogs voluntarily, something he conceded might not work. “One stray cat can decimate an area of young quail,” he said.

The committee hopes to find students, teachers or naturalists who would do a city wildlife audit, perhaps as a project. The group already has started gathering information on the kinds of landscaping--such as flowering plants or plants with berries--that residents could plant to attract birds and other animals.

“There are those who choose to make their yard an animal retreat, plant native plants or leave it in the wild, rather than a formal garden, which is more attractive to people than animals,” Gales said.

Gales, author of a handbook of Peninsula vegetation, wildlife and weather, said there are several facets to the change in wildlife over the last few decades.

While certain once-common birds such as road runner, quail and pheasant have virtually vanished, the overall bird population has grown because of extensive vegetation planted by developers, Gales said.

He said ground creatures have a worse time of it. “The ones on the ground are capable of being captured by predators,” he said. “Birds have fewer enemies.”

And some of the biggest predators, Gales said, are people who hit animals with their cars or trap them.