The Desert Tortoise Natural Area (DTNA) is a 39.5-square-mile (102 km2) area northeast of California City, California set aside for the California State Reptile, the Desert Tortoise. The area is located at the southwestern end of the Rand Mountains in the Mojave Desert, and has an interpretive center for visitors.
The Bureau of Land Management recognized the significance of the area and designated it an "Area of Critical Environmental Concern" and as a "Research Natural Area" in 1980.
Famous quotes containing the words desert, tortoise, natural and/or area:
“Three people marooned on a desert island would soon reinvent politics.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Deathlessness should be arrived at in a ... haphazard fashion. Loving fame as much as any man, we shall carve our initials in the shell of a tortoise and turn him loose in a peat bog.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)
“When human beings have been fascinated by the contemplation of their own hearts, the more intricate biological pattern of the female has become a model for the artist, the mystic, and the saint. When mankind turns instead to what can be done, altered, built, invented, in the outer world, all natural properties of men, animals, or metals become handicaps to be altered rather than clues to be followed.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)
“Prestige is the shadow of money and power. Where these are, there it is. Like the national market for soap or automobiles and the enlarged arena of federal power, the national cash-in area for prestige has grown, slowly being consolidated into a truly national system.”
—C. Wright Mills (1916–1962)