Vegetation and Wildlife
Vegetation in the wilderness is predominantly chaparral, although there are regions of conifers, including big cone Douglas fir, especially on north-facing slopes, such as the northern exposure of Madulce Peak. Streams contain riparian vegetation, and there are some stands of oak trees. A relict population of great basin sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) is visible along Highway 33 at the Bear Canyon trailhead; several populations of this species are left over from the last glacial epoch, when it was more widespread due to the cooler climate then.
Wildlife that may be encountered in the wilderness includes coyotes, black bears, and mountain lions. The California Condor can occasionally be seen, since the endangered bird was released back into the wild in 1992, and the wilderness is positioned between the two major Southern California condor sanctuaries, the Sisquoc (in the San Rafael Wilderness to the northwest) and the Sespe (in the Sespe wilderness to the southeast).
Read more about this topic: Dick Smith Wilderness
Famous quotes containing the words vegetation and/or wildlife:
“We love to see any redness in the vegetation of the temperate zone. It is the color of colors. This plant speaks to our blood.... What a perfect maturity it arrives at! It is the emblem of a successful life concluded by a death not premature, which is an ornament to Nature. What if we were to mature as perfectly, root and branch, glowing in the midst of our decay, like the poke!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Russian forests crash down under the axe, billions of trees are dying, the habitations of animals and birds are layed waste, rivers grow shallow and dry up, marvelous landscapes are disappearing forever.... Man is endowed with creativity in order to multiply that which has been given him; he has not created, but destroyed. There are fewer and fewer forests, rivers are drying up, wildlife has become extinct, the climate is ruined, and the earth is becoming ever poorer and uglier.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)