Indio Hills Palms Park Property and the Coachella Valley Preserve, located in the Indio Hills, contain the Thousand Palms Oasis and are a protected area in the

Coachella Valley , map_image = Wpdms shdrlfi020l coachella valley.jpg , map_caption = Coachella Valley , location = California, United States , coordinates = , width = , boundaries = Salton Sea (southeast), Santa Rosa Mountains (southwest), San Jacint ...

, located east of Palm Springs near Palm Desert, California. The

Coachella Valley National Wildlife Refuge Coachella Valley National Wildlife Refuge is a protected area in Riverside County, California's Coachella Valley. It lies within the unincorporated community of Thousand Palms, just north of Palm Desert. The refuge contains the majority of cri ...

is contained within the Coachella Valley Preserve, and all are in the

Colorado Desert California's Colorado Desert is a part of the larger Sonoran Desert. It encompasses approximately , including the heavily irrigated Coachella and Imperial valleys. It is home to many unique flora and fauna. Geography and geology The Colorado De ...

section of the Sonoran Desert and adjacent to the

Lower Colorado River Valley The Lower Colorado River Valley (LCRV) is the river region of the lower Colorado River of the southwestern United States in North America that rises in the Rocky Mountains and has its outlet at the Colorado River Delta in the northern Gulf of C ...

region.

California Fan Palm oasis

The Indio Hills Palms Park Property is managed by the

California Department of Parks and Recreation The California Department of Parks and Recreation, more commonly known as California State Parks, manages the California state parks system. The system administers 279 separate park units on 1.4 million acres (570,000 hectares), with over 280 ...

. Th
Coachella Valley Preserve
a 2,206-acre (8.93 km²) area, is maintained by the non-profit Nature Conservancy and is one of the few in the desert with an

oasis In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system.” The location of oases has been of critical imp ...

fed by natural

springs Spring(s) may refer to: Common uses * Spring (season), a season of the year * Spring (device), a mechanical device that stores energy * Spring (hydrology), a natural source of water * Spring (mathematics), a geometric surface in the shape of a he ...

that supports the only California native palm, the '' Washingtonia filifera'', or California Fan Palm. The San Andreas Fault, visible from the valley floor as a line of greenery along the base of the hills, captures groundwater that nurtures the palms. The 1,000 Palms Oasis grove is easily reached by foot from the trailhead.http://coachellavalleypreserve.org/fanpalm.html . accessed 6/20/2010

Desert pupfish

Naturally occurring

artesian Artesian may refer to: * Someone from the County of Artois * Artesian aquifer, a source of water * Artesian Builds, a former computer building company * Artesian, South Dakota, United States * Great Artesian Basin, Australia * The Artesian Hotel ...

ponds provide habitat for the Desert pupfish, a small,

endangered species An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inv ...

of freshwater fish - roughly the size of a young goldfish. These ponds are part of the self-guided tour among the California Fan Palm groves.

Coachella Valley Fringe-toed Lizard

The

is a restricted access habitat for the Coachella Valley Fringe-toed Lizard, listed as an

in California, a threatened species in the United States and the

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

classifies it as endangered.

References

External links

Official Coachella Valley Preserve website

Coachella Valley Preserve: McCallum trail hiking

Indio Hills Palms State Park

Coachella Valley National Wildlife Refuge

Center for Natural Lands Management: Coachella Valley Preserve
* * Protected areas of the Colorado Desert Coachella Valley Indio, California Oases of California Nature Conservancy preserves California State Reserves Protected areas of Riverside County, California Nature reserves in California {{RiversideCountyCA-geo-stub

California Fan Palm oasis

Desert pupfish

Coachella Valley Fringe-toed Lizard

See also

References

External links