NO ROOM TO ROAM

For eight years, the cougar dodged the man-made hazards that have turned the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains into a suburban minefield.

In the canyons near Rancho Santa Margarita, she hunted for deer within earshot of bulldozers grading a new road and within driving range of a golf course. At night, she roamed between Mission Viejo and Camp Pendleton along an oak-lined ridge, staying clear of the nuclear power plant and Interstate 5.

Then, on a Wednesday evening in October, her luck ran out.

The 80-pound cougar ventured across Ortega Highway toward Caspers Regional Park, as she had several times before. But this time she froze in the path of an oncoming car, blinded by the glare of its headlights. She was struck and killed, the latest victim of the urban squeeze that has reduced Orange County’s cougar population to less than 20.

Species by species, many of the county’s native animals are headed toward extinction because development is slicing the county into isolated patches of open space, federal and state wildlife biologists say.

Many pathways connecting the county’s prime wilderness--such as those linking the Santa Ana Mountains with the Chino Hills, or Newport Bay with the San Joaquin Hills--have been blocked, leaving animals with few safe places to roam. Some animals are killed trying to cross traffic, while others gradually are cut off from food, water, shelter and mates. Still others teeter on the edge of extinction because nature’s critical balance of predators and prey has been disrupted.

About 90% of Orange County’s natural habitats, from oak woodlands in the canyons to salt marshes along the coast, are already gone, and developers and highway builders are planning to dig deeper into prime animal habitat.

Wildlife biologists say most of the land west of Interstate 5 is already biologically bankrupt, with most native species gone and open space fragmented into uninhabitable islands. For a coyote or deer, crossing safely between these spaces is like jumping in the ocean and surviving a swim to Santa Catalina Island.

Animals will soon be confronted with new obstacles in the county’s last frontier--its southern and eastern canyons bordering the Santa Ana Mountains and the coastal canyons between Newport Beach and Laguna Beach.

Three proposed toll roads could turn those areas into a patchwork quilt. Also, three large communities already have been approved--Irvine Coast, Las Flores and East Orange--and several other projects are expected in Coal and Gypsum canyons east of Anaheim Hills.

“We’ve already nuked the coastal zone in Orange County, and now we’re headed into the foothills,” said Esther Burkett, the California Department of Fish and Game’s wildlife biologist for Orange County. “It’s like Hong Kong or New York. It’s too much, and nature will take the course toward extinction.

“A lot of people say let nature run its course,” Burkett said. “But we’re not talking about nature. We’re talking about Orange County, where the influence of man is unparalleled.”

Developers say they are struggling to balance the needs of nature with the needs of people in Orange County. Inevitably, any development will restrict animals, no matter how carefully planned. But whenever possible, developers and planners say, they are preserving open space and wildlife corridors and building road crossings so animals can migrate.

But wildlife experts say developers aren’t doing enough. To compensate for damaging prime habitat, builders and planners are trying to change the habits and homes of animals, which biologists call a risky game with nature.

At stake is Orange County’s rich heritage of wildlife. Unless the pace and pattern of development changes, wildlife biologists predict that mountain lions will disappear, deer will be driven out in droves, golden eagles will no longer soar over the canyons, and the rare gnatcatcher and cactus wren will be silenced.

The county has 24 threatened or endangered animals and plants--including two lizards, a fish, a snail and seven birds, and each one is an indicator that an entire ecosystem is imperiled.

Doug Padley, a research biologist hired by Orange County’s planning agency to study deer populations, sums up the plight of wildlife in the county: “dismal, even more so in the future,” he said.

Each of the areas proposed for development serves a unique function in nature. If all are developed without attention to animal migration paths, wildlife biologists say Orange County will be turned into a concrete jungle with parks for people, but few places large enough to sustain native animals.

Conservation groups and biologists aren’t ready to doom future generations to that fate.

“If that happens, that means (a large portion of people in the United States) won’t know what the world really looks like,” said Paul Beier, who has been tracking the county’s mountain lions for a state and county project. “To them, the world will be concrete and steel.”

The light-footed clapper rail lays her eggs along the banks of Upper Newport Bay and carefully hides her nest under a canopy of cord grass.

But nature’s balance has been upset here. And the bird can only watch helplessly as predators such as skunks and foxes ravage her retreat, killing her nestlings.

Because housing tracts and roads criss-cross the San Joaquin Hills between Irvine, the Newport Beach shore and Laguna Beach, coyotes have trouble reaching the bay. As a result, the coyote’s prey--red foxes, skunks and cats--multiply to unnatural proportions and threaten the survival of the clapper rail.

Only 131 pairs of the rare birds are left in Newport Bay, and if they are wiped out there, the species will probably become extinct. About 70% of the United States’ clapper rail population lives in Newport Bay, said Dick Zembal, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Clapper rails are secretive birds rarely seen in the open. About the size of a crow with a long beak, tawny breast and a back dappled in gray, cream, brown and black, the rails slip quietly through the marsh, feeding on snails, fish and clams.

The birds used to live from Santa Barbara to Baja California, but now they have few places to go, since about 95% of the state’s saltwater marshes have been paved or drained.

“The light-footed clapper rail is Orange County’s endangered species,” Zembal said. “Every marsh has had a problem.”

The plight of the bird is a sign of the ecological trauma unfolding in the coastal canyons of the San Joaquin Hills.

The canyons have about 25 square miles of nearly pristine habitat--a mix of shrubs, grasses and trees called coastal sage scrub--that feeds and shelters species such as deer, coyote, rabbits, lizards and songbirds.

But wildlife biologists say the habitat in the area is already so fragmented and disturbed that animals have to cross 5 miles of suburban landscape to reach the San Joaquin Hills from the Santa Ana Mountains. The last mountain lion in the area was seen four years ago, and deer and coyotes are dwindling.

The proposed San Joaquin Transportation Corridor could cut off more wildlife migration routes from canyons to the bay, which could finally spell the end of the clapper rails, Zembal said. One area of special concern is Bonita Creek, a major route used by coyotes, he said.

Steve Letterly, environmental manager of the county’s Transportation Corridor Agencies, said the agency has not decided on the specific design of the toll road, but the agency is committed to building as many animal crossings as possible.

Most of this territory is owned by the Irvine Co., which for 20 years has been planning a 9,400-acre development in the canyons between Corona del Mar and Laguna Beach called Irvine Coast. About 2,600 homes will be built.

Monica Florian, vice president of strategic planning for the Irvine Co., said the project was the most thoroughly studied in the company’s history, and its planners tried to minimize ecological damage by retaining large amounts of open space.

“In the long term, if it’s turned into a biological desert, that’s no good for anyone,” she said. “We’re here for the long term, so we care about these areas.”

More than 7,000 acres, or three-quarters of the land there, will remain open space, including Crystal Cove State Park. The company also has agreed to sell a large stretch of Laguna Canyon for a public preserve, and has vowed to retain half of its remaining 64,000 acres in Orange County for open space.

The Irvine Co. has asked the Nature Conservancy to manage its network of open space to ensure that animals can survive.

Biologists, however, warn that it won’t do much good to save 2,150 acres of Laguna Canyon without ensuring that it is linked to nearby wilderness areas with wide, east-west corridors for animals.

“It sounds like a lot (of acreage) on the surface, but unless it’s connected to habitat in the back country, in the long run there could be problems,” said Michael Soule, a UC Santa Cruz environmental scientist whose studies have shown that animals die out if restricted to isolated patches of land.

The Irvine Co.’s map of open space shows few large east-west corridors linking them, which Zembal said could be a major flaw.

“It’s like a string of pearls,” Zembal said. “If these pearls are out there by themselves without string connecting them, then each pearl isn’t viable and the necklace may fall apart.”

If biologists had a wish list of Orange County habitat they want to protect, most would rank Gypsum and Coal canyons at the top.

The side-by-side canyons east of Anaheim Hills link the Santa Ana Mountains with Chino Hills State Park, giving mountain lions, deer and other animals a broad home range.

If animal pathways in those canyons are cut, about 55 square miles of prime habitat in the Chino Hills would be unreachable from the mountains, and wildlife could be cut off from water in the Santa Ana River.

“People see the dry hills here and they don’t realize it’s home to golden eagles and mountain lions and deer and prairie falcon,” Burkett of the Fish and Game Department said. “They drive straight through to Disneyland, and it’s a shame because it is beautiful.”

The canyons are prime Orange County real estate coveted by a variety of builders. The Irvine Co. has announced preliminary plans to build a 7,000-home development in Gypsum Canyon, the county has been studying it for a large jail, or perhaps a garbage dump, and the Eastern Transportation Corridor will slice through it.

Also, Hon Development Co. plans to build in adjacent Coal Canyon, home to a 1,000-acre grove of rare Tecate Cypress trees, one of only four groves in the United States. The state is expected to buy the grove with $4 million in special bond money, but the housing would still disrupt habitat for mountain lions and other animals.

To the south, a large parcel of wilderness linked to Coal Canyon is jeopardized, also. The Irvine Co. is planning a 12,000-home community in the canyons of east Orange and widening of Santiago Canyon Road, which wildlife officials say will disrupt prime habitat, including eagle nesting areas.

Hon officials could not be reached to discuss their plans for Coal Canyon. The Irvine Co. has not yet developed details of the Gypsum proposal, but has agreed to keep 65% of East Orange as open space, including an entire nearby canyon of 5,300 acres.

To determine what natural resources are at stake in the northeastern canyons, county officials have mounted a study to pinpoint deer and mountain lion migration and the new toll road will include culverts or bridges, Letterly said.

Jack Bath, a biology professor at Cal Poly Pomona and former biologist at Chino Hills State Park, said the impact of the development proposals would be “enormous.” It would block migration of the male mountain lions, and “eventually lead to their extinction” in the canyons and Chino Hills.

Animals need enough room to roam and large enough populations so there is constant exchange of genetic material. Without it, a species inbreeds and eventually dies out.

“Even the Santa Ana Mountains will be significantly changed,” Burkett said.”You can’t pinch off that corridor that links Chino Hills with the Santa Ana Mountains. We’re making islands by developing in pieces and leaving tiny bits of habitat.”

The new projects spell high anxiety for not just cougars, but mule deer.

Padley, who is studying Orange County’s deer, said he can envision this scenario: When a doe searches for nuts and berries to sustain her fetus through the winter, she’ll find there are few oaks and shrubs left for foraging. She will look for cover, but find the brush she needs is vanishing, too. She’ll try to reach the Santa Ana River for water, but to get there she confronts a blur of cars racing down the Riverside Freeway or the new toll road.

To find a new home, the doe will have to dash across roads and golf courses. She starts to weaken, loses weight and becomes vulnerable to disease.

“It’s no different than a human being in a high-stress job. Their health deteriorates,” Padley said. “They probably won’t survive, and there will come a day when there won’t be mule deer in Orange County. The only deer you see would be in the zoo.”

For mountain lions, life in the remote, rolling hills around Rancho Santa Margarita has taken a dangerous turn in recent years.

Even if the female cougar had survived her trek across Ortega Highway in October, wildlife biologists say she probably would have been driven out of her home anyway in the next few years.

The spot near Rancho Santa Margarita where she hunted deer will be graded for a new 1,005-acre development project called Las Flores. The 15-mile ridge she used to cross to Camp Pendleton has been identified as the best route for the proposed Foothill Transportation Corridor. And rural roads all over the area are being extended or widened into urban thoroughfares where she would be risking her life each time she crossed.

Earlier this month, the Board of Supervisors approved the Santa Margarita Co.’s Las Flores planned community, which will include about 2,500 homes, a school, a commercial center and about 560 acres of open space.

The rugged, rolling terrain where Las Flores will be built is lined with the county’s best remaining forests of oak and sycamore, along with coastal sage scrub, a fragrant mix of short, soft shrubs and grasses that grow on hillsides and ridgelines.

The habitat houses a wide variety of animals, from hawks, owls and falcons to deer and reptiles.

The project’s environmental impact report noted that it will have “unavoidable adverse impacts” on sensitive habitat, and it will slice through migration routes used by animals such as mountain lions, “contributing significantly to the ongoing regional constriction of wildlife movement.”

Officials with the Santa Margarita Co. said they worked carefully to minimize the ecological impacts. They preserved a major wildlife route that stretches between Chiquita Ridge and O’Neill Regional Park, and to accommodate the protests of biologists and conservationists, they scrapped plans to develop 25 acres that fall on another animal route, said Diane Gaynor, spokeswoman for the developer.

“We do understand the need to preserve open space and conserve our resources, while balancing these issues with other important issues such as housing, roads and schools,” Gaynor said.

But Beier said obstacles posed by the Las Flores community and nearby developments, combined with the new Foothill toll road, spell trouble for cougars. The toll road will likely cut through Christianitos Canyon, a wildlife corridor linking Camp Pendleton and south Orange County’s regional parks.

In all, about 50 square miles of habitat will be disrupted, and several of the 20 or so cougars that remain in the Santa Ana Mountains will probably die, Beier said.

“You can kiss off south Orange County as far as cougar habitat,” Beier said. “The toll road will isolate habitat to the west. It’s like putting a wall around it.”

The toll road agency has not yet selected the exact route of the Foothill Transportation Corridor, and it is analyzing the wildlife migration routes in the area. Letterly said that at least six animal crossings will be built across or under the toll road if Christianitos Canyon is selected.

If the cougars of south county disappear, the species will be gone from almost everywhere in Southern California except the national forests.

“These cougars,” Beier said, “are probably the most precarious population in the state.”

Cougars, which decades ago replaced bears as the top predator in Orange County, are like the canary in the coal mine. If they die in south county, it means the region’s entire ecosystem is unhealthy.

Cougars are the most sensitive to habitat loss since males need at least 100 square miles of home range to breed and feed, Beier said. But they will probably be just the first of many species to dwindle, including deer, coyotes and raptors.

Already, signs of ecological trouble are appearing around Rancho Santa Margarita. At O’Neill Regional Park, rangers on rounds used to see 20 or 30 deer a few years ago. Now they see three or four, said Pete DeSimone, manager of the National Audubon Society’s Starr Ranch, a preserve near Rancho Santa Margarita, and one of the most vocal opponents to the Las Flores project.

“We’re already seeing animals of all sorts being hit on Ortega Highway,” he said. “There are major corridors left, but most have been cut off. You have pieces of habitat here, and pieces there, and it isn’t working. Unless we change, the very reason people move here--the allure of Southern California--will be gone.”

WILDLIFE CORRIDORS

Orange County wildlife is being squeezed by development into ever-shrinking parcels of land. Freeways, roads and housing tracts are fragmenting the migration paths of mountain lions, coyotes and other animals, often cutting them off from food, mates and shelter. The county’s largest wilderness areas are in the San Joaquin Hills and the canyons east of Interstate 5, but toll roads and new communities are planned there. Developers and environmentalists are searching for ways to preserve the migration paths, known as wildlife corridors. But biologists fear the developments will lead to local extinction of such animals as mountain lions and deer.

The Irvine Co. plans a 7,000-home development in Gypsum Canyon. The land also is a possible site for a county jail.

The Coal Canyon Road underpass and a culvert next to the Green River Golf Course’s clubhouse offer the only safe route for cougars, deer and other animals to reach the Santa Ana River. The planned Eastern Transportion Corridor must have similar crossings or the wildlife paths will be cut off.

A key wildlife corridor runs from the Santa Ana Mountains to the Santa Ana River and Chino Hills State Park. Cougars and deer, in particular, must have access to all three areas to survive. The Eastern Transportation Corridor and a Hon Development Co. housing project in Coal Canyon threaten to block their path.

Preserving wildlife corridors in Gypsum and Coal canyons is the No. 1 priority of most biologists.

The San Joaquin Hills are prime wildlife habitat threatened by the Irvine Coast development project and the San Joaquin Transportation Corridor.

The Las Flores housing project and the Foothill Transportation Corridor could disrupt 50 square miles of habitat, but efforts are being made to preserve some animal corridors.

ANIMALS AT RISK

Mountain Lion

Only about 20 cougars have survived in the Santa Ana Mountain range and its canyons. They need large areas to hunt and breed, at least 100 square miles for males.

Mule deer

This deer is found primarily in foothills east of Anaheim Hills and South County canyons, although it also is found in the San Joaquin Hills.

Coyote

Coyotes are an important predator for maintaining nature’s balance in Orange County. They roam throughout the county, although many of their migration routes have been cut off by roads and development.

Light-footed Clapper Rail

This shy, rare bird lives in Orange County’s saltwater marshes, with more than 70% of its U.S. population at Upper Newport Bay. The birds are on the federal endangered species list.

California Least Tern

This bird arrives to nest on sandy beaches in Huntington Beach every April. The county has set up a small, fenced preserve at Huntington State Beach for the terns, which also are on the endangered species list.

Golden eagles

These majestic birds with a 7-foot wingspan soar over canyons in south and eastern Orange County in search of rabbits and rodents.

ORANGE COUNTY HABITATS

The county has five major types of habitats--the natural areas that support communities of plants and animals--and all are at risk.

Coastal Sage Scrub

This mix of sagebrush, wild buckwheat, grasses and cactus grows on Orange County’s coastal canyons. It is prime habitat for a variety of species, from deer, coyote and rabbits to two threatened birds, the gnatcatcher and cactus wren. It is found only in Southern California, and from 70% to 90% of it has disappeared to development.

Saltwater marshes

Wetlands used to line the coast from Seal Beach to Newport Bay, but about 95% have been drained or paved. Major ones remaining are at Bolsa Chica, Anaheim Bay and the Talbert marsh. They are home to rare birds as well as scores of wintering waterfowl such as geese and ducks.

Oak woodlands

Canyon oak and coast live oak are invaluable to deer, raptors, songbirds and other animals for food and cover. These large hardwoods grow slowly, so they are difficult to replace when cut down for development. One of the county’s best remaining oak forests is in the area in southeastern county that will be graded for the new Las Flores community.

Riparian

Willows, sycamores and a thick underbrush line the beds of freshwater creeks, rivers and streams. But Orange County’s major rivers have been drained or lined with concrete, leaving only a few creeks for wildlife. About 90% of the county’s riparian vegetation, critical to hawks, deer, birds, coyotes and other species for water and cover, has disappeared.

Chaparral

These golden, shrubby plants line the north-facing canyons of Orange County. Adapted to desert-like conditions in summer, they are used by quail, roadrunners and other birds as well as rabbits, rodents and deer. Chaparral has disappeared at the same fast rate as coastal sage scrub, which is usually found nearby.