Soda Lake, Carrizo Plain National Monument
The Carrizo Plain is the largest remaining tract of the San Joaquin Valley biogeographic province with only limited evidence of human alteration. Lying adjacent to the southwest edge of the San Joaquin Valley in eastern San Luis Obispo County, the 250,000 acre area is a diverse complex of habitats similar to those in the San Joaquin Valley that have become fragmented or destroyed. It includes the largest remaining contiguous habitats for many endangered, threatened and rare species of animals such as the San Joaquin kit fox, the blunt-nosed leopard lizard, the San Joaquin antelope squirrel and the giant kangaroo rat, and also provides habitat for many listed plant species including the California jewelflower, Hoover´s wooly-star and San Joaquin woolythreads.
The Carrizo Plain has been a focal point identified in U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service recovery plans for land acquisition and management of these species. In addition, the Carrizo Plain National Monument contains "critical" habitat for California condors as well as being the first area in California to reintroduce both the pronghorn antelope and the Tule elk, native ungulates had been hunted to extinction by the late 1800s. Both sandhill cranes and mountain plovers use the Carrizo Plain as either a roosting place or as their winter home. A wide variety of raptor species also use the area for nesting, foraging and wintering.
The Nature Conservancy led a field trip by urban park advocates including The City Project to Carrizo Plain and Chimineas Ranch in May 2009.
See more about National Parks, the PBS documentary America’s Best Idea, and Transit to Trails.
