NATURE CONSERVANCY - COACHELLA VALLEY PRESERVE

COACHELLA VALLEY
PRESERVE

Verdant Thousand
Palms Oasis

LOCATION

The Coachella Valley Preserve consists of 20,000 acres, and is located in Riverside County, approximately ten miles east of Palm Springs, north of Interstate 10.

The Preserve is located in the heart of the 300-square mile Coachella Valley, situated north of the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains, and south of the Little San Bernardino Mountains. The Preserve straddles the Indio Hills and the San Andreas Fault.

To reach the Visitors Center, exit off Interstate 10 eastbound at Ramon Road, and proceed approximately 4.5 miles to Thousand Palms Canyon Road. If westbound on Interstate 10, exit at Washington Street, and proceed approximately 3 miles to Ramon Road, then approximately 1 mile to Thousand Palms Canyon Road. Turn north on Thousand Palms Canyon Road. The entrance to the Visitors Center is about two miles. (Reference Thomas Brother 1996 Edition of Riverside County: Page 390, and Page 788.)

HISTORY

Human history in the Coachella Valley dates back more than 600 years. The last tribe to live in the valley was the Cahuilla, a great Indian nation which spread from west of the Colorado River to the Pacific Ocean, and encompassed Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. The various Cahuilla tribes gathered and traded food from the upper and lower deserts. They hunted sheep, deer, and pronghorn in the mountains, and rodents, rabbits, and reptiles from the desert floor. Edibles from mesquite, agave, and yucca were gathered to provide enough food to last throughout the year. In winter months the excess was stored in ollas and basket granaries. The Cahuilla Indians still live between Palm Springs and Temecula on reservations. There is a prominent mountain east of Temecula named Cahuilla Mountain.

In 1906, Louis Wilhelm traded two mules and a wagon for 80 acres of Thousand Palms Canyon. In the 1940's, the rapid development of the Coachella Valley resulted in the eventual destruction of major corridors of wildlife habitat. In 1980 the federal government listed the Coachella Valley fringe-toed lizard as threatened, an indication of how drastically the desert ecosystems were changing.

In 1983, The Nature Conservancy targeted the area for protection as part of their National Wetlands Program. The Preserve encompasses the last undisturbed watershed in the Coachella Valley, as well as the sources of water-carried sand which creates the dune habitat of the lizard. In April, 1984, the California Nature Conservancy purchased 1,920 acres of the proposed site, including Thousand Palms Oasis, the second largest grove of California Fan Palms in the state, a rare combination of desert and aquatic habitats.

Desert Sand Dunes

GEOLOGY

The floor of the Preserve is composed of alluvial fans and isolated terraces of desert pavement dissected by wash areas in the north, and extensive aeolian sand fields and dunes. Elevation ranges in the south from 100 to 1,000 feet above sea level. The largest alluvial fan begins at the southern edge of the Indio Hills at the mouth of Thousand Palms Canyon. Here rocks and sands eroded a course, sandy, cobblestone surface that is broken by a network of narrow, sandy washes. The persistent westerly winds in the Coachella Valley move the finer particles and sands from the southern portion of this fan into the ever-changing blow-sand fields.

Desert Iguana (Dipsosaurus dorsalis)
Species identification thanks to Marco A. Lopez
University of Michigan Coachella Valley High School '93

FAUNA

Wildlife in the Coachella Valley Preserve is varied and abundant. 180 animal species inhabit the Preserve, including a large population of resident and migratory birds. There are five rare animals occurring in the Valley. One species, the Coachella Valley fringetoed lizard (Uma inornata) is a threatened species inhabiting the blow-sand fields. Leading biologists maintain that the Preserve is one of the few locations in the Coachella Valley still capable of sustaining a population of these lizards.

Other rare species include the flat-tailed horned lizard, the Coachella valley round-tailed ground squirrel, the giant red velvet mite, and the giant palm-boring beetle. Birds found on the Preserve include the cactus wren, hooded oriole, phainopepla, gambel's quail, black-throated sparrow, American kestrel, greater roadrunner, verdin, blue-grey and black-capped gnatcatchers, Say's and black phoebes, common yellowthroat, great blue heron, and American bittern.

FLORA

The Coachella Valley contains two rare habitat types. The first, palm oasis woodland, is found in numerous groves within the Preserve. Thousand Palms Oasis, in the center of the Preserve, is the second largest grove of Washingtonia filifera in the state. The palm oases are sustained primarily by water made available through faulting and fracturing of underlying bedrock material. Water flowing underground from a higher elevation is stopped by an intersecting fault block and rises to ground level, creating a unique aquatic environment.

The second area, blown-sand fields, is created by a combination of surface water and wind transport processes. The sand fields are dependent upon the periodic flooding that funnels sand originating in the northern half of the watershed through Thousand Palms Canyon. Sandy wash, rocky slopes, alluvial plains, and other habitats are protected in the Coachella Valley Preserve. Creosote bush, encilla, burrobush, smoke tree, and desert lavander are the dominant shrubs in these areas.

ACCESS

The Preserve is open every day from sunrise to sunset. Individuals and groups are welcome to visit the Preserve. Contact in advance:

Coachella Valley Preserve
P.O. Box 188
Thousand Palms, Calif. 92276
(760) 343-1234

Desert Cactus Flower in Bloom

MANAGEMENT

The Coachella Valley Preserve is jointly owned and managed by the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the California Department of Fish and Game, and The Nature Conservancy. The Conservancy acts as the coordinating agency, and hires a fulltime preserve director. This unique cooperation of public and private agencies to protect a threatened ecosystem is a model for future conservation efforts. 1,898 acres of the proposed Coachella Valley Preserve are owned and managed by the California Nature Conservancy, the state branch of the private, non-profit conservation group, whose resources are devoted entirely to the acquisition and management of ecologically significant land. To date, the Conservancy has helped preserve over 2.6 million acres of natural lands: islands, forests, marshes, streams, lakes, beaches, and prairies. In California alone, over 160,000 acres have been saved.

For information on visiting California Preserves, or becoming a Conservancy member, write or phone:
California Field Office
The Nature Conservancy
201 Mission Street, 4th Floor
San Francisco, Calif. 94105
(415) 777-0487

WEB SITES FOR OTHER CALIFORNIA
NATURE CONSERVANCY PRESERVES

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The Carrizo Plain Natural Area

The Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve

This page provided by courtesy of: Jim Grattan 909-696-2500.

All photographics images on these pages were filmed using a Canon ES1000 videocamera, and digitalized with Snappy from Play, Inc..

Disclaimer: This page has no official relationship to The Nature Conservancy. Its keeper, Jim Grattan, provides this page solely as a convenience to Web users interested in knowing more about TNC-owned and/or managed preserves.

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Last update on: 05/29/00 at 7:01 PM PST.