Bitterwater is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

in the Bitterwater Valley of

San Benito County San Benito County (; ''San Benito'', Spanish for "St. Benedict"), officially the County of San Benito, is a county located in the Coast Range Mountains of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 64,209. The coun ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Bitterwater is located at . Bitterwater Valley, located at the base of the Diablo Range mountains on a crucial earthquake, San Andreas Fault, was once the primary habitat of the giant

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 nor ...

s. Around 1946,

DDT Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, commonly known as DDT, is a colorless, tasteless, and almost odorless crystalline chemical compound, an organochloride. Originally developed as an insecticide, it became infamous for its environmental impacts. ...

poison was introduced throughout that area to kill

coyote The coyote (''Canis latrans'') is a species of canis, 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 ecologica ...

prairie dog Prairie dogs (genus ''Cynomys'') are herbivorous burrowing ground squirrels native to the grasslands of North America. Within the genus are five species: black-tailed, white-tailed, Gunnison's, Utah, and Mexican prairie dogs. In Mexico, p ...

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. I ...

s, and other animals that ate crops or posed a threat to ranch or farm animals. As the condors ate the animals killed by DDT, they too vanished. Note that this is not the problem with DDT. DDT has a relatively low toxicity to animals is not used for that purpose. The preferred agent is strychnine and it is used in grains to poison ground squirrels or meat to poison predators which leads to its consumption by birds which are then consumed by carnivores and in turn consumed by birds of prey along with the poisoned squirrels. The reason DDT is insidious to birds is it affects their ability to metabolize calcium resulting in fragile eggs which seldom hatch. DDT makes it into the food change the same way as strychnine in that the insects and fish that are killed by it end up being consumed by any animal scavenging for food. But as humans decimated the California Condor, they realized this and changed tactics. Now the Bitterwater Valley in California is home to many condors. No prairie dogs exist in Bitterwater but the digger squirrel is very pervasive in the area, as well as coyote, California badger, redtail hawks, and wild turkey. Bitterwater valley was discovered by Edward Calhoun Tully during a sheep drive from Chihuahua Mexico to San Francisco California in the mid to late 1800s.

References

Unincorporated communities in California Unincorporated communities in San Benito County, California {{SanBenitoCountyCA-geo-stub