The Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge is located in the foothills of the southwestern

San Joaquin Valley The San Joaquin Valley ( ; es, Valle de San Joaquín) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven ...

Kern County, California Kern County is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 909,235. Its county seat is Bakersfield. Kern County comprises the Bakersfield, California, Metropolitan statistical area. The county ...

. The refuge is one of four units of the Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge Complex for

California condor The California condor (''Gymnogyps californianus'') is a New World vulture and the largest North American land bird. It became extinct in the wild in 1987 when all remaining wild individuals were captured, but has since been reintroduced to nort ...

California condors

Elevations on the Refuge range from . Purchased to protect dwindling California condor foraging and roosting habitat in 1985, the refuge is the site where the last wild female condor was trapped in 1986. The reintroduced condors feed and roost on the refuge. The refuge is an integral part of the Service's condor monitoring activities. The most notable physical features of the refuge are the

San Andreas Fault The San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that extends roughly through California. It forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, and its motion is right-lateral strike-slip (horizontal) ...

, which bisects the refuge, and the dramatic Bitter Creek Canyon. As of July 2014, there is a total population of 437 condors living in sites in California, Baja California and Arizona. This includes a wild population of 232 and a captive population of 205. Sixty-eight free-flying Condors are managed by the US Fish & Wildlife Service in Southern California.

Other species

In addition to the California condor, the Bitter Creek Refuge provides

grassland A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses ( Poaceae). However, sedge ( Cyperaceae) and rush ( Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur na ...

, oak

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the '' plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

chaparral Chaparral ( ) is a shrubland plant community and geographical feature found primarily in the U.S. state of California, in southern Oregon, and in the northern portion of the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico. It is shaped by a Mediterranea ...

, pinion pine/juniper/oak woodland, and

riparian A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. Riparian is also the proper nomenclature for one of the terrestrial biomes of the Earth. Plant habitats and communities along the river margins and banks a ...

and

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (Anoxic waters, anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in t ...

habitat for federally listed endangered

San Joaquin kit fox The endangered San Joaquin kit fox (''Vulpes macrotis mutica'') was formerly very common in the San Joaquin Valley and through much of Central California. Its 1990 population was estimated to be 7,000. This subspecies is still endangered, after n ...

blunt-nosed leopard lizard ''Gambelia sila'', commonly known as the blunt-nosed leopard lizard, is a species of lizard in the family Crotaphytidae. The species is endemic to southern California. Taxonomy ''Gambelia sila'' was originally described by Leonhard Stejneger in ...

, giant kangaroo rat, and species of Federal concern such as the western spadefoot toad, the western horned lizard and the tri-colored blackbird. Other terrestrial species on the refuge include

coyote The coyote (''Canis latrans'') is a species of canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the wolf, and slightly smaller than the closely related eastern wolf and red wolf. It fills much of the same ecological nich ...

bobcat The bobcat (''Lynx rufus''), also known as the red lynx, is a medium-sized cat native to North America. It ranges from southern Canada through most of the contiguous United States to Oaxaca in Mexico. It is listed as Least Concern on the ...

mountain lion The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large cat native to the Americas. Its range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere. ...

mule deer The mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer. Unlike the related whi ...

pronghorn The pronghorn (, ) (''Antilocapra americana'') is a species of artiodactyl (even-toed, hoofed) mammal indigenous to interior western and central North America. Though not an antelope, it is known colloquially in North America as the American a ...

tule elk The tule elk (''Cervus canadensis nannodes'') is a subspecies of elk found only in California, ranging from the grasslands and marshlands of the Central Valley to the grassy hills on the coast. The subspecies name derives from the tule (), a ...

, and

western rattlesnake Western rattlesnake may refer to: * ''Crotalus oreganus'', a venomous pitviper species found in North America in the western United States, parts of British Columbia and northwestern Mexico * ''Crotalus viridis ''Crotalus viridis'' (Common name ...

. A total of 119 bird species have been recorded on the refuge including 90 migratory species.

References

Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge profileOfficial Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge website

External links

Condor Watch
The Condor Watch crowdsourcing project, started April 2014. {{authority control National Wildlife Refuges in California Protected areas of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Protected areas of Kern County, California Wetlands of California Landforms of Kern County, California 1985 establishments in California Protected areas established in 1985