The Economist May 14th 2022 United States 23
L
os angeles, aseveryoneknows,isa
noodle bowl of highways. As everyone
may not know, it is also one of only two
cities in the world where big cats roam
wild inside the city boundaries (the other
is Mumbai). One even took up residence
near the Hollywood sign. But big cats and
highways do not mix, which is why Los
Angeles will soon be home to one of the
world’s biggest wildlife corridors.
The cats in question are mountain
lions. They live in the Santa Monica
Mountains. Their numbers are stable.
Their habitat is mostly pristine wilder
ness, full of deer, the lions’ prey. The
ecology of their range, the largest urban
national park in the world, is healthy,
thanks in part to their presence as an
apex predator. Yet animals can come
under threat without habitat loss. Genet
ic degradation can be just as deadly.
Slicing through the mountains is
Route 101, carrying up to 10,000 vehicles
an hour. It cuts the Santa Monica range
off from a larger wilderness to the north.
The southern tract is not big enough for
all the lions, which each require hunting
grounds of 60150 square miles (160390
square kilometres). The result is a pop
ulation trapped on an environmental
island, with inbreeding and genetic
degradation. A study in 2016 found that,
given their environment, the Santa Mon
ica mountain lions’ chances of extinc
tion in 50 years would be 1522%; because
of their genetic deterioration, the chance
of extinction was more like 99.7%.
Four years after that study came the
first evidence that the big cats were
suffering physical damage: a young male
wasfoundwitha 90degreekink in his
tail and with only one testicle descended.
Researchers had seen that before. In the
early 1990s biologists studying the Flori
da panther, a closely related animal,
found that many of the males had the
same genetic flaws. The Florida panther
escaped extinction only thanks to the
introduction of females brought from
Texas to refresh the gene pool.
California does not need to go that far.
There are healthy mountainlion pop
ulations north of the Santa Monica range,
separated by the ribbon of road. Hidden
cameras show the animals crouched at
the side of the highway, not daring to
cross. The solution is a 165footwide
(50metre) dirt bridge which would allow
them to pad high over the traffic.
Such corridors have worked else
where, from large spans for elk over the
TransCanada Highway to a dinky claw
bridge for migrating red crabs on Christ
mas Island. Angelenos raised money for
theirs in a campaign that dubbed the
animal in the Hollywood Hills the “Brad
Pitt of mountain lions” (handsome,
ageing, single). Last month the governor,
Gavin Newsom, launched construction.
The animals become sexually mature
at 2½ to 3 years and have cubs every other
year. So within ten years of the corridor’s
completion the greatgrandchildren of
the first mating beyond the mountains
could have cubs. Genetically, even a few
matings would make a difference. “We’ll
definitely save the mountain lion,”
thinks Paul Edelman of the Mountains
Recreation and Conservation Authority.
“It’s just a matter of how long it takes.”
Conservation
The concrete jungle
S ANTA MONICA MOUNTAINS, CALIFORNIA
The roar of mountain lions mixes with the roar of traffic
Educatingtheundocumented
Meanness to
migrants
A
merica guaranteesevery child liv
ing within its borders a free public
education. This could change if Greg Ab
bott, Texas’s Republican governor, has his
way. He has said he intends to challenge a
Supreme Court ruling that obliges states to
provide free schooling to undocumented
immigrants. Perhaps as many as 183,000
pupils are currently in Texas’s schools.
For nearly a century every state has re
quired children to attend school. Compul
soryeducation laws began in colonial
days. The rationale was that an educated
citizenry was needed for a democracy.
In 1975 Texas revised a law to prevent
undocumented children from enrolling in
public schools and to allow the state to
withhold state funds from districts that
educated them. A classaction lawsuit was
filed on behalf of Mexican children in Tex
as who were unable to prove they had come
to America legally. Texas lost in the district
court, appealed, and the case (called Plyler
v Doe) was argued before the Supreme
Court in 1981. The state lost again: in 1982
the court ruled 54 that undocumented
children had a right to attend free public
school under the Equal Protection Clause
of the Fourteenth Amendment. But in a ra
dio interview on May 4th, Mr Abbott said
that he plans to challenge this ruling.
About 1.7m undocumented immigrants
live in Texas, estimates the Migration Poli
cy Institute, a thinktank in Washington,
dc. Texas experienced the secondlargest
absolute growth of immigrants (after Flori
da) between 2010 and 2019. Mr Abbott may
see an opportunity for his upcoming gu
bernatorial race. According to polling by
The Economist/YouGov, 95% of Republicans
say that the issue of immigration is impor
tant. Appearing tough on immigrants
could be politically advantageous.
The controversy over a leaked Supreme
Court draft opinion to overturn the consti
tutional right to abortion established in
Roe v Wademay also provide an opening.
“Conservatives have long wished to get out
of providing state services of all kinds to il
legal immigrants,” says Geoff Kabaservice,
a historian at the Niskanen Centre, a cen
treright thinktank. Given the likely rever
sal of 50 years of settled law, Mr Kabaser
vice reckons, Mr Abbott thinks now is a
good time to “overturn as many of these
kinds of precedents that apply to public
services as he can”.
Undocumented immigrants have con
WASHINGTON, DC
Texas’s governor wants to deny public
education to some children living there