SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA’S ENVIRONMENT At the Crossroads : Wildlife: VEGETATION, ANIMALS AND HABITATS : HEAD<i> What took nature eons to build is not easily duplicated. : </i> : Depending on Man for a Chance to Survive

Along Interstate 5 in southern San Diego County, there is what seems to be a saltwater marsh. Native grasses are flourishing, and a symphony of sound comes from insects and frogs. But the marsh is fake. It was built by the state as compensation for wetlands beloved by birds for nesting and mowed down by man for freeways. The dirt was trucked in, the water channeled through man-made diversions. Sadly, none of this seems to be fooling the birds. Neither the endangered light-footed clapper rail nor the endangered California least tern--supposedly the prime beneficiaries of all the fuss--has been spotted at the marsh since its creation four years ago.

This artificial wetland is a harbinger of the fate that awaits Southern California’s wildlife. Shoved off its territory by people, wildlife will increasingly have to depend on man-manipulated environments for survival. In many ways, these well-intentioned, high-tech fixes smack of desperation, built to offset the taking of natural habitat. In the San Fernando Valley, a 4-foot-deep “lake” with a drain on its bottom is filled with treated effluent every autumn for migrating birds and emptied every summer to keep down the mosquitoes. A proposal to restore steelhead trout to Malibu Creek would use a $500,000 elevator to lift the fish over a man-made dam that interrupts their run.

Conservationists applaud such efforts, reasoning that man-made wildlife habitat is better than no habitat at all. But the success of these costly, Disney-like creations is not always assured. What took nature eons to build is not easily duplicated by man in months or even years. Worse, these and other so-called “mitigation” projects may lull government planners into believing they can allow the scattered remains of Southern California’s wild lands to be paved over at no cost to their original inhabitants.

Agency’s ‘Vietnam’

Already, the toll is high. Tree frogs, pond turtles, horned lizards and rosy boas that a youngster 25 years ago might have played with in his Los Angeles County back yard are seen rarely, if ever, by his children in that same back yard today. There is much in nature now that may not be there for the next generation. More than half the state’s rare or endangered plants and animals reside in Southern California, and wildlife officials are not optimistic about saving them. “Southern California is this agency’s Vietnam,” said David Klinger, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “We have intense problems there, but we don’t have the ability to control (the causes) . . . development, urbanization, people pressures.”

Some wildlife has survived-- mockingbirds, jays, house finches, coyotes, skunks and possums--but there is a sameness to them. Once diverse habitat has been transformed into suburban uniformity. The vegetation of the coastal community of Pacific Palisades, for example, is not so different from that of the inland city of Encino. Even most rivers have disappeared, cemented over for flood-control projects, and once-rich and abundant wetlands have been annihilated. With the variety of habitat went the variety of wildlife. It is a case of what ornithologist Lloyd F. Kiff calls “ecological simplification,” and he blames it for a “wildlife disaster” in Southern California.

“Where we had many kinds of birds, we now have only a few hangers-on because of the sameness of suburb after suburb,” said Kiff, acting curator of ornithology at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. “Everything is the same.

Even the insect may be in jeopardy. In 1949, Charles Hogue, curator of entomology for the museum, listed every species of butterfly he could identify near his home in Eagle Rock, just north of downtown Los Angeles. He counted 29. This year, Hogue counted only 19, and their populations had declined 20% to 80%. Among those missing were the California dogface, the official state butterfly. The loss of a few bugs cannot be dismissed as insignificant. The insect is at the bottom of the food chain and pollinates the majority of the world’s plants. “If not for insects, all the other things people see in nature would not be there,” Hogue said.

There are other ominous signs. In Big Bear Valley, one of two existing colonies of an endangered fish lives a perilous existence in a small pond choked with weeds and garbage. The one-inch, gray and white fish--the unarmored, three-spined stickleback--thrived in a nearby spring-fed stream until it dried up three years ago, a victim of water diversions and over-pumping of wells by the ever-growing Big Bear population. Now the stickleback depends on a one-inch pipe that fills its pond from municipal water supplies, a lifesaver arranged by concerned Big Bear residents. “If the pipe breaks, that could be it for the stickleback,” said U.S. Forest Service biologist Steve Loe.

In the Yucca Valley, just north of Palm Springs, one of the state’s richest bird-breeding grounds is threatened by explosive development and potentially devastating over-pumping of underground water. Called the Big Morongo Wildlife Preserve, the 40-acre desert oasis is a major resting place for migrating birds drawn to a sparkling brook that meanders through impenetrable thickets of cottonwood, willow and native brush. “Just try and find another place like this anywhere in California,” raved Gene Cardiff, curator of biological sciences at the San Bernardino County Museum.

Unfortunately for the birds, people, too, are drawn to the valley. The county master plan calls for the number of homes in the valley to rise from 5,800 up to 33,550. Just last spring, over the objections of the Audubon Society, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors approved a 200-unit housing development upstream from the preserve. Biologists fear that this and the other planned housing will deplete the valley’s water and perhaps even dry up the brook that gives the preserve its life. Cardiff, who does an annual bird count there, is grim about its future. Each species he identifies brings him a kind of relief. “Well, that makes my day,” he said, brightening recently at the sight of a tiny, scarlet-headed, rare bird called the vermilion flycatcher. “Just knowing they are still around.”

One of nature’s most dazzling but fragile offerings, the vernal pool, has already disappeared from Los Angeles and Orange counties. Little more than depressions of dried mud in the summer, vernal pools are transformed by winter and spring rains into ponds filled with insects, frogs and fairy shrimp. Concentric rings of brilliant, multicolored wildflowers surround them; some nearly extinct flowers appear only in them.

To protect these treasures, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors decided in 1980 to require builders to pay for each vernal pool destroyed by development. The money was then set aside to purchase lands containing other vernal pools. But nine years passed before the supervisors spent the developers’ money, and land values rose. A small parcel of land purchased this year as “mitigation” contains only a handful of pools, hardly compensation for the nearly 800 that San Diego State University Professor Ellen Bauder says development destroyed.

In most cases, good intentions have not been enough. An attempt to reintroduce the Harris’ hawk to the banks of the Colorado River may be doomed because native trees where the birds once nested cannot regenerate there anymore. Dams have stopped the once yearly floods that cleansed the soil, causing a toxic buildup of salt. Cottonwoods that usually grow to 30 or 40 feet have been newly planted, but they will never regerminate. Only 10 breeding pairs of 200 captive-bred hawks released there over the past decade remain. “The hawks are doing what they are supposed to do, but the environment won’t support them,” said Brian Walton, director of a bird research group at UC Santa Cruz. Mother Nature also refuses to cooperate at the artificial marsh in San Diego County. Some native plants are not thriving because the soil contains too little nitrogen, and fertilizer will not help because it would make the plants too tasty to bugs. Only nature, through decades of plant decay, can get it right.

Tampering by humans can throw nature’s other self-regulating mechanisms out of whack as well. The raven population, for instance, has exploded for a variety of man-made reasons, including the generation of plentiful amounts of garbage for the bird to eat. In excessive numbers, the raven has become highly destructive. It has decimated the population of songbirds and pecked to pieces hundreds of endangered baby desert tortoises.

Refuges offer some hope. Despite disturbing failures, biologists report encouraging signs that some declines can be stemmed. Thanks to funds raised partially by hunters, the once-doomed bighorn sheep is making a comeback in the desert. In Los Angeles County, efforts are under way to develop connecting wildlife corridors from the ocean to the easternmost mountains. Scientists are also studying the movements of mountain lions in Orange County, trying to find ways to reduce potential conflicts as more and more people intrude on their territory. Some wildlife has even learned to make the best out of cement. The Prado Dam, built on the border of Orange and Riverside counties for flood control, has created a lush wetland that provides ample protection and nesting cover for dozens of species of animals.

But in the end, only vestiges of wildlife may remain, reminders of the time not so long ago when the majestic California condor nested in the Santa Monica and San Gabriel mountains, when Orange County beach-goers tripped over the egg-filled nests of clapper rails, when antelope still roamed the Antelope Valley and canopies of trees shaded the now barren banks of the Colorado River. More wildlife will follow the path of the Palos Verdes blue butterfly, a graceful little creature that by 1982 had only few acres of meadow left to call home. When the city of Rancho Palos Verdes took the land for a baseball field, the blue butterfly quietly vanished.

REPORT CARD

Average score: 5

Three views on our progress, rated on a one to 10 scale

* Lloyd F. Kiff, acting curator of ornithology for the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History: “There has been a big loss of species diversity and a big loss in the sheer numbers of animals due to too many people, which leads to too much habitat destruction, too many exotic plants and animals and too many contaminants.” Score: 3

* Richard Crook, vice president and division manager of Corona-based Homestead Land Development Corp. : “I think wildlife is in pretty good shape. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the environmentalists are protecting most of the wetlands and restricting development to uninhabited areas.” Score: 7

* David Klinger, spokesman for the Pacific region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: “The best we can do for many endangered species in Southern California is to preserve the status quo. We have more endangered species problems in Southern California than in other areas of the country because what was originally a diverse environment for wildlife is now under intense development pressures.” Score: 5

TURNING POINTS

* 1990--The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will decide whether to recommend to the Interior Department secretary that the endangered desert tortoise be put on the permanent list of federally endangered species.

* June, 1990--California voters will decide on an initiative to ban the sport hunting of mountain lions and to spend $10 million a year for a native oak, deer and mountain lion habitat and $20 million for rare and endangered species. The money will come from existing environmental programs and 10% of the unallocated tobacco tax.

* 1991--A three-year state study on the behavior and movement of mountain lions in Orange County is expected to be completed. The study will help the state determine how to protect the animals from urban encroachment.

VOICES:

“It’s sometimes tough for the general public to understand why we are trying to save some poor little fish or an organism. Probably one of the best answers is that the pupfish, for example, exists in a multitude of hostile habitats. I think we . . . had better stop and learn whatever we can from a creature that has this kind of adaptability.”

--RONALD POWELL, wildlife manager, biologist and Colorado River coordinator, state Department of Fish and Game.

“Where people used to see 100 warblers a day of a single species, they now see 30, or even five. . . . We keep worrying about the how the rain forests in Central and South America are being depleted. Hell, we are doing the same thing here.”

--CHUCK BERNSTEIN, North Hollywood author of “The Joy of Birding”

ANIMALS IN JEOPARDY OR EXTINCT

Rare , threatened or endangered animals on state or federal lists that appear in Southern California counties .

FISH -- Colorado squawfish -- Desert pupfish -- Mojave tui chub -- Razorback sucker -- Unarmored threespine stickleback

AMPHIBIANS -- Desert slender salamander -- Desert tortoise -- Tehachapi slender salamander

REPTILES -- Barefoot banded gecko -- Blunt nosed leopard lizard -- Coachella Valley fringe-toed lizard -- Island night lizard -- Southern rubber boa

BIRDS -- American peregrine falcon -- Arizona Bell’s vireo -- Bald eagle -- Bank swallow -- Belding’s savannah sparrow -- California black rail -- California brown pelican -- California clapper rail -- California condor -- California least tern -- Elf owl -- Gila woodpecker -- Gilded northern flicker -- Least Bell’s vireo -- Light-footed clapper rail -- San Clemente loggerhead shrike -- San Clemente sage sparrow -- Swainson’s hawk -- Western yellowed-billed cuckoo -- Yuma clapper rail

MAMMALS -- California bighorn sheep -- Island fox -- Giant kangaroo rat -- Mojave ground squirrel -- Peninsular bighorn sheep -- San Joaquin antelope squirrel -- San Joaquin kit fox -- Southern sea otter -- Stephens’ kangeroo rat

MAMMALS (MIGRATORY) -- Gray whale -- Sei whale -- Finback whale -- Blue whale -- Humpback whale -- Right whale -- Sperm whale

INSECTS -- El Segundo blue butterfly -- Palos Verdes blue butterfly

Native California animal species and subspecies extinct in Southern California .

FISH -- Tecopa pupfish

BIRDS -- Harris’ hawk* -- San Clemente Bewick’s wren -- Santa Barbara song sparrow

MAMMALS -- Mexican jaguar*

INVERTEBRATES -- Pasadena freshwater shrimp* -- Yorba Linda trigonoscuta weevil -- San Felipe leopard Frog -- Atossa fritillary butterfly

* Animals extinct in California but still existing outside the state.

NOTES: The Harris’ hawk and the Atossa fritillary butterfly are the only animal species or subspecies that were breeders in Southern California. Many more species of insects and other invertebrates have probably become extinct in California without anyone knowing of their existence. This list includes only recently noted extinctions.