Earth Angel : Where the Wild Things Are

“It’s a deer mouse,” Phil Rundel announces, holding up a narrow tin box he’s carrying out of his house. The 8-inch-long contraption is a Sherman trap, usually used to survey animal populations, he explains. His boyish face highlighted by his white hair and wide grin, Rundel shakes the box and the tiny animal bounces off into the undergrowth. The 52-year-old UCLA biology professor is clearly delighted with this humane system of mouse removal.

Rundel’s black T-shirt, emblazoned with three gold elephants and an exhortation from Khao Yai National Park in Thailand to save wildlife, is evidence of the wide range of his interests. In his lab, Rundel studies environmental stress in desert, tropical and Mediterranean regions. For the past 20 years, he has helpedcreate and manage parklands and preserves in Chile, South Africa, Brazil and Thailand. Closer to home, he is the director of UCLA’s newly created education and research site at Stunt Ranch in Cold Creek Canyon, two canyons north of Topanga.

On a sun-filled, rain-washed Saturday morning, Rundel leads a group of hikers and flower lovers into remote Hondo Canyon, which borders his Topanga property. “The fire was natural,” Rundel says of the blaze that swept to within 50 feet of his house two years ago. The slopes of the canyon are covered with the grayish green foliage and bright yellow flowers of bush poppies. “These weren’t here before the fire,” he says. “The seeds were probably in the soil for about 50 years, waiting to be activated by the fire.”

As we proceed up the canyon, we spot Rundel’s favorite tree, a roughly 500-year-old giant oak. “Look,” he says, “there are baby oaks at the drip line.” Neatly ringing the tree are tiny saplings, growing where light and shade meet. He points out wild peonies on the side of the trail; the thick foliage almost conceals the red flowers. “This blooms early,” says Rundel, “so it’s gone by thetime hikers usually come by. It’s wonderful to be able to walk these hills in all seasons, to see the changes week by week.”

Although it might appear to be a busman’s holiday, Rundel hikes in the canyons every weekend he’s home. The ecology of Topanga, after all, is not all that different from many of the far-flung environments he studies. As we pass througha meadow, piles of freshly dug-up earth line the trail--the work of pocket gophers, which remind Rundel of South African mole rats. South Africa is noted for its wide variety of bulb plants, and scientists have recently established that the mole rats’ incessant digging breaks up the bulbs, allowing them to multiply. The pocket gophers, Rundel says, perform the same function in Topanga.

On the way down, we meet members of the Sierra Club trail crew. They have been working on this trail for years. “We say building Hondo is like painting the Golden Gate Bridge,” says Ron Webster, the crusty leader of the crew. “Just whenyou think you’re finished, you have to start again.” Today they are trimming foliage, digging drainage ditches and widening the trail. Webster recently helped Rundel design 1,000 feet of new trail, which 30 volunteers constructed one weekend afternoon. “It’s hard to believe,” Rundel says as we head out of thecanyon, “but without these people volunteering their time every Saturday, there would hardly be trails in these mountains.”