Environmental Effects on Species Habitats in Southern California Mountains
This paper surveys the ecosystems and endangered species of Southern California's mountain ranges, with particular emphasis on the San Gabriel Mountains. It traces the legislative frameworks protecting these habitats — including the federal Endangered Species Act of 1973, the National Landscape Conservation System, and California's own endangered species statutes — and examines how habitat loss, fragmentation, wildfires, and human encroachment threaten endemic amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. The paper discusses specific case studies such as the California mountain yellow-legged frog and the orange-throated whiptail lizard, and critiques the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's reluctance to exercise emergency listing provisions. A comprehensive state listing of fully protected and threatened species is also reviewed.
- Introduction: Overview of Southern California mountain biodiversity and paper scope
- Legislative and Regulatory Background: ESA, USFWS mandates, and harm definitions
- Conservation of Southern California Mountain Habitats: National monuments, NLCS, and California state species protections
- Species Habitats in the San Gabriel Mountains: San Gabriel geography, endemism, and habitat fragmentation threats
- Endangered Species Case Studies: Yellow-legged frog, whiptail lizard, and USFWS listing failures
- Conclusion: Summary of threats, biodiversity value, and agency shortcomings
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- Grounds broad ecological claims in specific legislative history, citing both federal statutes and court decisions to show how law shapes on-the-ground conservation outcomes.
- Uses concrete species examples — the mountain yellow-legged frog, orange-throated whiptail lizard, and Palila bird — to illustrate abstract policy failures at the individual-species level.
- Integrates primary source data (California Code of Regulations listings, Federal Register entries, the state Fully Protected Species table) alongside secondary scholarly and journalistic sources, giving the paper empirical weight.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective synthesis of legal, scientific, and policy literature to build a multi-layered argument. Rather than treating ecology, legislation, and bureaucratic practice as separate topics, the author weaves them together to show how statutory intent, agency inaction, and biological vulnerability interact — culminating in the yellow-legged frog case study, where a court ruling had to compel the agency to fulfill its own mandate.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a regional overview of Southern California's mountain biodiversity, then establishes the federal and state legal frameworks for species protection. It narrows geographically from all Southern California ranges to the Santa Rosa/San Jacinto Monument and finally to the San Gabriel Mountains specifically. Species-level case studies follow, supported by tabular data and an appendix of state listings. The conclusion returns to the overarching critique of USFWS emergency listing practices. This funnel structure — broad to specific, legislative to applied — is well suited to environmental policy writing at the undergraduate level.
Introduction
Southern California is not for everybody. "Some people view the climate and laid-back lifestyle with longing. Others perceive the area, and its inhabitants, as a little too far over the edge" (Hutchings 2001:4D-Z). While the region may not appeal to all types of humans, it does attract a wide range of species that make their home in the mountainous areas of Southern California. In fact, Southern California is dotted with several mountain ranges, including the San Gabriel, San Bernardino, San Jacinto, San Bruno, Santa Rosa, Cuyamaca, the Palomar Mountains, and even the Chocolate Mountains (Havert, Gray, Adams & Gray 1996). One of the most biodiverse and well-studied of these ranges is the San Gabriel (Wake 1996).
This paper provides an overview of the ecosystems in these mountain ranges in general, with an emphasis on the San Gabriel range in particular, identifies which species are endangered within these ecosystems and why, and assesses what is being done to correct the problem and protect endangered species in these regions.
Legislative and Regulatory Background
According to Adams, Kutner, and Stein, biological inventory efforts of all types — both low- and high-tech — have provided researchers with an enormous amount of information on the identity, distribution, and characteristics of species and ecosystems in the United States. Research into how ecosystems function has paid tremendous dividends in the form of food, fiber, pharmaceuticals, and other useful products. Nevertheless, despite several hundred years of biological exploration, scientists remain largely uncertain about the vast majority of species and ecosystems that comprise life on Earth (Adams, Kutner & Stein 2000).
In response to growing threats to various endangered species, Congress enacted the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1973 in order to "provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved, [and] to provide a program for the conservation of such... species" (Baur & Donovan 1997:767). Section 9 of the Act generally prohibits the "take" of any endangered or threatened species by "any person" to effect this goal; "take" includes all activities that harass, harm, wound, or kill a protected species (Baur & Donovan 1997). In the case of endangered species, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has been tasked to intercede with the industrial forces that threaten the well-being of imperiled species or destroy their habitat, and to put a stop to the destructive mechanisms that rob the planet of its diverse biological wealth (Lieben 1997).
In addition, in 1975, the USFWS broadly defined "harm" to include acts that "significantly disrupt essential behavioral patterns" and result in "significant habitat modification or degradation" (Baur & Donovan 1997:768). The courts have upheld this aspect of the take prohibition in a series of decisions. In 1979, a U.S. district court in Hawaii held that a state program maintaining feral sheep and goats in the critical habitat of the endangered Palila bird — and causing destruction of that habitat — clearly fell within the agency's definition of harm. The Ninth Circuit upheld this decision, finding that the district court's conclusion was consistent with the Act's legislative history showing that Congress was informed the greatest threat to endangered species is the destruction of their natural habitat. Years later, the Ninth Circuit again upheld a finding that a state game management program for a separate species of feral sheep constituted harm to the endangered Palila under the revised USFWS definition of harm. The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently upheld the USFWS's definition of harm as well (Baur & Donovan 1997).
Works Cited
Adams, Jonathan S., Lynn S. Kutner, and Bruce A. Stein, eds. Precious Heritage: The Status of Biodiversity in the United States. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Baur, Donald C., and Karen L. Donovan. "The No Surprises Policy: Contracts 101 Meets the Endangered Species Act." Environmental Law 27(3): 767–90.
California's Plants and Animals. November 24, 2003. Habitat Conservation Planning Branch, California Department of Fish and Game.
Dasmann, Raymond F. "Habitat Conservation." In Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2004.
Havert, Bill, Gary Gray, and Sue Adams. Nature Guide to the Mountains of Southern California by Car & Foot. Baldwin Park, CA: Gem Guide Books, 1996.
Hutchins, Helen V. "Southern California: The Auto Industry's Silhouette Valley." Automotive News 75(5933): 4D-Z, June 4, 2001.
Lieben, Ivan J. "Political Influences on USFWS Listing Decisions under the ESA: Time to Rethink Priorities." Environmental Law 27(4): 1323–71, 1997.
"San Gabriel Mountains." In Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2004.
"Special Places We Should Protect." Wilderness, Winter 2003/2004: 32.
Sullivan-Brennan, Deborah. "A Great Place to Visit." Wilderness, Winter 2003/2004: 56.
Thompson, Dale B. "Valuing the Environment: Courts' Struggles with Natural Resource Damages." Environmental Law 32(1): 57, 2002.
Wake, D. B. "A New Species of Batrachoseps (Amphibia: Plethodontidae) from the San Gabriel Mountains, Southern California." Los Angeles County Museum Contributions in Science 463: 1–12, 1996.
Youth, Howard. "The Plight of Birds: Today, More Than a Thousand Species of Birds Face Extinction." World Watch 15(3): 18, May 2002.
Appendix A: State and Federally Listed Endangered and Threatened Animals of California (as of April 2004)
Source: California's Plants and Animals, Habitat Conservation Planning Branch, California Department of Fish and Game, November 24, 2003.
The following is a list of animals found within California or off the coast of the state that have been classified as Endangered or Threatened by the California Fish and Game Commission (state list) or by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior or the U.S. Secretary of Commerce (federal list).
Code Designations and Totals as of April 2004:
SE = State-listed as Endangered: 47
ST = State-listed as Threatened: 32
SR = State-listed as Rare (old designation; all animals reclassified to Threatened)
FE = Federally listed as Endangered (20.6% of all U.S. listed endangered animals as of 12/31/03): 81
FT = Federally listed as Threatened (30.5% of all U.S. listed threatened animals as of 12/31/03): 39
SCE = State candidate (Endangered)
SCT = State candidate (Threatened)
FPE = Federally proposed (Endangered)
FPT = Federally proposed (Threatened)
FPD = Federally proposed (Delisting)
Total number of animals listed (includes subspecies and population segments): 149
Number of animals state-listed only: 27
Number of animals federally listed only: 72
Number of animals listed under both state and federal acts: 50
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.