The wildlife that lives beneath the Hollywood sign

On top of Mount Lee, in the heart of Los Angeles, two red-tailed hawks glide on the warm air above the giant letters of the Hollywood sign. The sign sits on a hillside in Griffith Park, about five times the size of New York’s Central Park and the largest municipal park in the city. Because the area is closed to the public, it has become a refuge for animals looking for a break from the city: birds nest in the sign, snakes curl up at its base and bobcats roam around the letters.

The backdrop also made a mountain lion, P-22, a Los Angeles icon after a 2013 National Geographic photograph caught him prowling at night with the lit sign behind him. Now a team is preparing to fit the letters with cameras. The sign’s caretakers are working with Torch Systems, a technology company that uses solar-powered sensors, on an AI fire-detection service that can spot smoke from miles away. Fire is considered the area’s biggest expected risk, especially because visitors may bring lit cigarettes into the park.

“Los Angeles is butted up against nature,” says Diana Wright, the official caretaker for the Hollywood Sign Trust. The 4,310 acres, about 6.5 square miles, in the shadow of the sign are part of a natural park that is much larger and more native than Central Park, she says.

The University of California, Los Angeles, has designated Griffith Park a Significant Ecological Area, partly for its role as a corridor for gene flow and species movement between the Santa Monica, San Gabriel and Verdugo mountains. Researchers have documented about 200 species of birds in the park, along with 50 species of butterflies and 40 species of mammals.