Wildlife is returning to the Altadena foothills after the Eaton Fire. Yes, that's a mountain lion

Wildlife is returning to the areas burned by the Eaton Fire — and scientists are working to study their return to better understand how nature recovers after fire.

The background

Since July 2024, Kristen Ochoa and a group of volunteers and a biologist have been documenting wildlife in the Chaney Trail corridor, a wilderness area northwest of Eaton Canyon, via a network of trail cameras and other methods.

Ochoa, a UCLA psychiatry professor, founded the Chaney Trail Corridor Project after the famous Nuccio’s Nursery sold a 78-acre piece of land in the Altadena foothills. The Pasadena Polytechnic school proposed to build a sports complex there.

Deer return to the Chaney trail corridor after the Eaton Fire.

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Courtesy Kristen Ochoa

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Chaney Trail Corridor Project

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Ochoa and her group organized — they set up trail cameras and partnered with a UCLA biologist to document bats and other plant and animal life in the area, including deer, owls, black bears, bobcats and mountain lions. They have thousands of observations now on iNaturalist.

The sports complex development plan has since been abandoned. But the data Ochoa and her group collected now serves as an important baseline to understand wildlife recovery in the Altadena foothills after the Eaton Fire.

 ”We are pretty excited about what we can potentially learn about nature coming back,” Ochoa said.

A trail camera captured a mule deer and a fawn in the Chaney Trail Corridor before the Eaton Fire.

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Courtesy Kristen Ochoa

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Chaney Trail Corridor Project

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Before the Eaton Fire, the Chaney Trail Corridor was a lush area frequented by various wildlife, including this young black bear in July 2024.

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Courtesy Kristen Ochoa

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Chaney Trail Corridor Project

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The night of the fire

When the Eaton Fire began on Jan. 7, Ochoa got a front row seat to the destruction.

“As the fire destroyed the Chaney Trail corridor, I could see it through the trail cams,” Ochoa said. “Each one burned in the fire.”

Her cell phone pinged with each image the cameras caught as extreme winds whipped debris in front of them. Then came the flames. One by one, the cameras went black.

A trail camera captures the Eaton Fire before being burned.

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Courtesy Kristen Ochoa

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Chaney Trail Corridor Project

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Ochoa was able to get back out on the mountain soon after the flames died down. She collected the burned cameras and installed new ones. The landscape — formerly lush with chaparral, sage, thistle, sugar bush and other plants — was barren.

But only a few days after the fire, life started to return. After the rains, the mountain began sprouting green.

“The coyotes and the ravens were there right away,” Ochoa said. “Then with time, we've seen some green come back. There's crown sprouting on a lot of the trees. There's elderberry coming back. There's black sage coming back.”

A coyote returns to the burned Chaney Trail Corridor.

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Courtesy Kristen Ochoa

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Chaney Trail Corridor Project

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Ochoa said a stream in the area has become an oasis for wildlife.

“The riparian area of Millard Canyon did burn, but in patches, and a lot of the tree canopy is still there. There's food, there's water. ... If anything, it was sort of like a wonderland right after the fire,” Ochoa said.

First there were the birds, then came the deer as the grass and plants started to grow.

“Then came the bobcats because the ground squirrels were there,” Ochoa said. “And the coyotes, of course, are regulars. And then we were fortunate to see a mountain lion.”

A mountain lion returns

At 10 p.m. on March 26, one of Ochoa’s trail cameras caught a lanky mountain lion pausing in the center of the frame. It was the first one her cameras had caught returning since the fire. A week later, the rest of the family showed up on cameras in another part of Millard canyon — a female with two juveniles.

“That mountain lion means everything to me,” Ochoa said. “Nature is resilient and, for me, it helps me feel resilient as well. Honestly, I really wanted to share it with everybody who has struggled during this fire so they can feel the same feeling of hope and elation that the lion is back.”

But first, Ochoa checked in with her partners at the San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians Gabrieleno Tongva. Mountain lions, or tukuurot, are culturally significant to the Tongva, and she wanted to share the news respectfully. The tribe approved.

 ”It's hope,” said Mona Recalde, community outreach coordinator with the tribe. “Seeing the first lions, it's an exciting time because it shows us that Mother Earth will restore. That's important right now, especially with the fires and the devastation that occurred, we all need signs of hope in this world.”

Data to support conservation

Ochoa hopes the ongoing monitoring of the wildlife corridor will help ultimately conserve the Chaney trail area in the Altadena foothills for good.

“We believe it's likely that the land will still be for sale at some point, and we want to try to conserve that land,” she said.

Ochoa and supporters believe that preserving open land, and developing more responsibly, is more urgent than ever.

“Seeing the first lions, it's an exciting time because it shows us that Mother Earth will restore," said a representative of the San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians Gabrieleno Tongva. "That's important right now, especially with the fires and the devastation that occurred, we all need signs of hope in this world.”

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Courtesy Kristen Ochoa

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Chaney Trail Corridor Project

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Tongva scientist Samantha Morales Johnson Yang said there are lessons from Indigenous practices that should be heeded going forward.

“ We did not traditionally have villages where the Santa Ana winds blew, and we did that on purpose because we knew how the strong wind could bring fire,” said Yang. “I'm not saying that we should not have people live there, but we need to think of alternatives for building materials if we want to continue having people live up there.”

Ochoa said preserving more open land in the Altadena foothills is another way to adapt as climate change drives more extreme weather and displaces more people and wildlife.

“ I think that in these sorts of spaces — the urban-wild interface — it's really important if we have a chance to keep it open, to allow the wildlife to move around,” Ochoa said.

The lessons from the recent fires — and wildlife's recovery — go deeper than policy, Ochoa added.

“It's a time when we can also learn from the wildlife and nature and all the plants and sort of watch them regrow as we do," she said. "It can teach us how to rebuild our own lives as we watch nature do what it's been doing for millions of years, which is just return.”