Snakes, bobcats, mountain lions: the secret animal world beneath the Hollywood sign as reflected on by Canon Eleanor Wright

From our cathedral library’s clerestory windows, I observe sandstone quadrangles and manicured lawns. These spaces were designed centuries ago. They suggest an orderly, disciplined cosmos. Yet, even here in our university town, peregrine falcons nest among stone gargoyles. Red foxes slip through the churchyard shadow after Evensong. We often forget human grandeur, no matter how carefully staged. It always rests upon older ground. A recent account of the Hollywood sign wilderness offers a vivid reminder of this enduring reality.

Few monuments celebrate human ambition like those giant white letters on Mount Lee. Built initially as an advertisement, it later became a cinema icon. The sign truly represents our collective appetite for spectacle, celebrity, and constructed illusion. However, naturalists remind us of a deeper truth. A complex chaparral ecosystem thrives beneath that corrugated metal and structural steel. Red-tailed hawks catch thermals. Rattlesnakes sun on shale. Mountain lions traverse narrow ridgelines between concrete basins. The wild has not merely survived human pretense; it quietly envelops it.

The Hollywood Sign Wilderness and Spiritual Sight

In the Anglican tradition, we do not regard creation as a blank slate. It is not just a backdrop for our cultural drama. Instead, it is a primordial covenant. Creation lives with its own inherent integrity and purpose before God. The psalmist sings of mountains belonging to wild goats. He also mentions rocks sheltering badgers. In that vision, non-human creatures possess their own dignity and vocation. They do not exist to flatter our vanity or furnish our economy. They simply participate in their Maker’s silent praise.

A profound spiritual discipline involves seeing what lies beneath our cultural facades. Much of contemporary civic life focuses on brand management. It also involves relentless self-curation. These habits leave little room for vulnerability or humility. We gaze upon the Hollywood hills and see only our own invention’s letters. This makes us succumb to a kind of moral myopia. Recognizing the bobcat stalking brush just paces from a global monument forces us to acknowledge our actual scale. We are tenants in an intricate, living household. We neither authored nor fully comprehend it.

Embracing Ecological Necessity

This awareness carries practical ethical weight. It matters particularly for those involved in urban planning, conservation policy, and environmental stewardship. Southern California’s wildlife corridors are precarious. Freeways, cul-de-sacs, and rodenticides hem them in. True stewardship demands more than sentimental admiration for wild beasts. It requires concrete restraint. Communities must preserve contiguous habitats. They must invest in wildlife crossings. We must accept boundaries on our own territorial expansion. Justice toward creation begins when human convenience yields to ecological necessity.

Our choir gathered this past week. We rehearsed Byrd and Gibbons. I again noticed how liturgy relies on breath, cadence, and restraint. Silences speak as clearly as sound. Nature teaches this same contemplative poise. The city below Mount Lee buzzes with relentless industry and fabricated drama. Meanwhile, the cougar moves with quiet patience across the dry chaparral. Immense grace exists in that silence. It calls us away from noise. It draws us toward a deeper, more reverent kinship with the living earth.

By Canon Eleanor Wright

Canon Theologian and Rector at Christ Church in a university city. Combines traditional choral liturgy with rigorous intellectual inquiry, bioethics, and civic bridge-building across deep partisan lines. Writes on ethical philosophy, institutional trust, contemplative prayer, environmental stewardship, and civil compromise.