Trailblazer: Robert Martinez
Trailblazing Function: Seeker of cats, wildlife photographer
Location: Glendora, California
I’m a Fashionable Hiker as a result of: I wish to discover, uncover and study.
As I observe Robert Martinez up a slim, rugged canyon sliced into the San Gabriel Mountains foothills, I expertise the distinct feeling of being watched. It stays as we scamper up a brief sport path to reach at a tree-ringed clearing. Right here, Martinez drops his pack, then sits down subsequent to a small steel field, which incorporates a fair smaller digicam. Because it seems, there are eyes in these hills—and various of them belong to Martinez.
The beginner wildlife photographer pulls a banged-up laptop computer from his pack and fires it as much as see what the digicam may need captured over the previous week. Deer, bobcats, gray foxes, mountain lions, and bears frequent this actual spot, certainly one of many layovers alongside the huge net of pure superhighways that exists within the San Gabriels, barely faraway from the comparatively unnatural sprawl situated just under. They saunter previous with their kin, they lounge beneath shady oaks, they caterwaul in the hunt for mates—animals being animals, with out the interference of people. No less than, none that they’re conscious of.
I wait patiently as Martinez hundreds the movies. The digicam is delicate to movement, so most of the time, it’s triggered by wind or small mice scurrying previous. However there are comical moments, too—curious squirrels strolling almost straight into the lens till their tiny nostrils fill the display; blue jays all of the sudden popping up from beneath, as if enjoying a sport of peek-a-boo.
It’s all gratifying to look at, however let’s be actual—what we’re actually hoping to see is a mountain lion.
picture by Robert Martinez
Martinez grew up close to this canyon, conscious from a younger age of the “ghost cats” that lived within the hills above his house. “We by no means get to see them, however they see us,” he says. “That’s at all times been intriguing to me.” Whereas visiting his mom in Colorado seven years in the past, he remembers questioning if there have been lions in these mountains, too. Again house, his curiosity piqued, Martinez started scrolling by YouTube, drawn to the beginner path digicam movies that served as a window into the cats’ on a regular basis habits. Then, he went for a stroll.
Alone on a fireplace street, removed from well-traveled mountaineering routes, Martinez noticed tracks. “I couldn’t cease considering how cool it was that the lion was strolling proper the place I used to be strolling,” he says. He arrange his first path cam in March 2012. “It was embarrassing telling individuals, ‘, I’m going to get a mountain lion on digicam!’ It’s like, yeah, proper—you’re going to get squirrels and nothing else.” He positioned the digicam close to the place he noticed the tracks a number of months earlier. Six weeks later, Martinez caught his first mountain lion on movie. “I couldn’t cease watching it,” he says. “After that, I received so obsessed. I’m like, I’ve received to see extra.”
One in all Martinez’s cameras, prepared for motion
Martinez now owns over a dozen totally different cameras, largely video and some nonetheless. He has no particular coaching in images or wildlife biology—he works within the grocery business—so this new passion got here together with a steep studying curve, albeit one he was keen to realize. He used to place cameras in easy-to-reach spots, which left them inclined to theft. Now, Martinez chooses distant places, trying to find current sport trails and learning the world for indicators of wildlife.
As we navigate round freshly downed bushes and clamber over algae-slicked boulders, Martinez factors out these indicators—piles of scat; small, urine-soaked depressions left by lions to mark their territory; claw marks left by a bear. He additionally tells me tales of what he’s seen on this space, specifically the remnants of mountain lion kills, a few of them shockingly recent. And naturally, he’s additionally seen actual, precise lions; solely two to this point, though he hopes to expertise the fun once more. “It’s like peeking backstage at a present or one thing.”
Indicators of wildlife are all over the place, in case you simply know the place to look.
Spoiler alert: we don’t see a lion that day on movie or in individual. Neither of us is especially bothered, although. The joys lives on for Martinez as he continues to discover the mysterious lives of mountain lions. He would like to sometime see a den, and hopes to lions within the snow. “I must have cameras all over the place,” he laughs. “It’s like, what do they do all day? It’s enjoyable attempting to piece collectively the story.”
And as for me, I do know I’ll be capable to see his future captures on Instagram and YouTube, the primary venues for Martinez’s work. In actual fact, shortly after our hike, I discover that he uploaded a photograph of lions ingesting at what he calls the “neighborhood pool,” a water gap hidden from sight for many forest guests, however nonetheless seen to all because of his dedication and diligence in offering a window into the lives of those elusive creatures.
Martinez evaluations video footage from certainly one of his cameras
Martinez sells prints and licenses movies on occasion, and whereas he admires Nationwide Geographic photographers like Steve Winter, who’ve made a profession on this area, he’s most grateful for the chance to easily view cats and different wildlife of their pure routines, and to share the expertise with others. He additionally hopes to encourage individuals to view mountain lions in a unique mild.
“I get requested on a weekly foundation, ‘Are you afraid? Aren’t you afraid of getting attacked? Are you going to be subsequent?’ No, I’m not going to be subsequent. They’re not on the lookout for people to eat. They’ve received loads of deer,” he says. “They don’t wait within the bushes for people.”
This clearing serves as a lounge, crossroads, and mating grounds for bears, mountain lions, and different animals.
As an alternative, Martinez needs individuals to put their fears apart and understand that people and cats can (and do) peacefully coexist, and that we will really take an energetic function in making certain their survival. He suggests that folks think about donating or volunteering with organizations just like the Mountain Lion Basis and help the present efforts to fund a wildlife crossing at Liberty Canyon, particularly essential now that the Woolsey Fireplace has affected over 80% of Santa Monica Mountains parklands, essential habitat for mountain lions.
“I would like individuals to really feel protecting and never take them as a right, and understand how essential they’re to the ecosystem,” says Martinez. “To see the sweetness within the mountain lions, to really feel the eagerness that I really feel.”
Mountain lion picture by Robert Martinez; all different pictures by Shawnté Salabert
