California Wilderness

The California Wilderness is envisioned to encompass the wildest and least populated lands of California within the Mediterranean climatic zone. As illustrated below, it would stretch south from the San Francisco Bay Area to the mountains just north of Los Angeles. East to west it would extend from the Central Valley to the Pacific Coast at Big Sur.

One of the best places today to examine the ancient Pleistocene life of Southern California is the La Brea Tar Pits. The Pleistocene environment in the San Francisco Bay Area is portrayed in this video.

The rebirth of the future California Pleistocene landscape began in the late 1970s with the relocation of tule elk into the Diablo Range in the northern wilderness reaches. This successful move was followed by the reintroduction of pronghorn antelope and tule elk to the Carrizo Plain in the central lands east of the Big Sur.

Beside wildlife currently extant in these lands, the wilderness would include representatives or relatives of animals once inhabiting California. California Megafauna Chart lists potential wildlife inhabitants in the ultimate wilderness. Most symbolic of these animals is the grizzly bear, whose closest American relatives may be found in the Yellowstone region of the Rocky Mountains south of the Canadian border.

The California Wilderness would be linked by wildlife corridors to the Mohave Desert and the Sierra Nevada Wildernesses. The Mohave corridor would cross the Tehachapi Mountains that enclose the south end of the Central Valley.

The Sierra corridor would cross the Central Valley, connecting across former oil fields with the Kern River Valley as it emerges from the Sierras. This corridor would pass through the north end of the City of Bakersfield where oil facilities currently are occupied. 200 years in the future this area would be ripe for cleanup and rebirth as a corridor for wildlife migrating across the Central Valley grasslands between the Coast Range and the Sierras.

The major Highway 5 north/south arterial would most likely tunnel underneath the Mohave/Tehachapi corridor and bridge the Central Valley/Sierra corridor.

A corridor in the north would connect the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta with the northernmost extension of the California Wilderness. Given the potential increase in sea level over the coming 200 years, the 'Delta' may embrace a greatly increased expanse of open water and marshland.

California Wilderness Megafauna - Pleistocene Residents & Proposed Future Representatives
Pleistocene	Proposed	Comments
California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus)	Same	Largest North American bird saved from extinction in last 25 years
American Cheetah (miracinonyx)	Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus)	The extinct American Cheetah evolved with the pronghorn antelope. Modern Cheetahs found in Africa and central Asia are quite similar and are endangered with only a little over 10, 000 believed to survive in the wild.
Sabre-toothed cat (Smilodon sp.)	None	Extinct. Known for its long front canine teeth. More than 2500 specimens found in the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles.
Jaguar (Panthera onca)	Same	Extinct in California. Closest free ranging individuals in North America are found in Mexico and occasionally in Arizona.
American Lion (Panthera leo atrox)	Asian Lion (Panthera leo persica)	The extinct American Lion were a little larger than the modern lion and may have hunted ancient horses, bison, antelope and deer. Their remains are found throughout North America. Asian Lion is proposed for establishment because it is endangered (less than 300 individuals remaining in the wild).
Mountain Lion (Felis concolor)	Same	Exists in area.
Bobcat (Lynx rufus)	Same	Exists in area.
Dire wolf (Canis dirus)	None	Extinct. Larger than Gray Wolf by about 15% in weight, but with a smaller brain.
Gray Wolf (Canus lupis)	Same	Pleistocene remains found back more than 500,000 years. Extinct in California, but packs currently roam in the northern Rocky Mountain / Yellowstone area.
Coyote (Canis latrans)	Same	Exists in area.
Black Bear (Ursus americanus)	Same	Exists in area. Both the black and grizzly bear originally evolved in Eurasia.
Grizzly Bear (Ursus arctos)	Same	Killed off in California after the Gold Rush. Ironically, this bear is on the California state flag.
Short-faced Bear (Arctodus simus)	Spectacled Bear (Tremarctos ornatus)	Numerous specimens found at La Brea. Believed to be primarily a meat eater and scavenger. Spectacled bear is much smaller and endangered, with less than 3000 individuals surviving. Lives in the Andes Mountains of South America and is related to the Short-faced bear which is believed to have evolved in South America. Can live in forest, scrub or grassland.
American Mastodon (mammut americanum)	None	Extinct. Browsed on spruce needles, grass, moss, and twigs of spruce, pine, larch and cedar.
Columbian Mammoth (Mammuthus columbi)	African Elephant (Loxodonta Africana)	The extinct Columbian Mammoth had a shoulder height of 3.6 to 4 meters with tusks up to 4 meters long. Probably had a thin hair cover since they lived in warmer climes than the woolly mammoth. Consumed leaves, fruits, woody parts of plants and grasses similarly to African species based on fossil dung. Loxodonta Africana is the larger savannah species of African elephant.
New World Stilt-legged horse or onager (Equus calobatus)	Modern horse (Equus caballus) & Asian asses (E. hemionus)	New World “stilt-legged” horses (NWSL) found in Mid- and Late Pleistocene deposits in the north and west of North America. The NWSL are often found with a second equid form commonly regarded as closely related to the Eurasian caballines, a group that includes the domestic horse (Equus caballus). The NWSL have gracile limbs similar to the Asian asses (hemionids—e.g., onager, E. hemionus; and kiang, E. kiang). Recent DNA evidence suggests that NWSL may be the same species as the modern horse. Despite the extinction of all species of horse in the Americas, feral horses descended from domestic stock have thrived well in the American west.
Western horse (Equus occidentalis)	Grevy’s Zebra (Equus grevyi)	With over 200 individuals of western horse recovered from Rancho La Brea, paleontologists have determined that this extinct species had a strong resemblance to the modern East African zebra. The long-legged Grevy's zebra is the less numerous of the two species of east African zebras.
North American Rhinoceros (Teleoceras) & Wooly Rhino (Coelodonta antiquitatis)	Sumatran rhino ((Dicerorhinus sumatrensi)	Teleoceras, ranged from Florida to the West Coast from about 17 million years ago until about 4.5 million years ago when they became extinct. The Wooly Rhino did not strictly exist in North America. The wooly rhino was a member of the subfamily Dicerorhinae. The Sumatran rhino ((Dicerorhinus sumatrensi) is the only surviving member of that subfamily. The Sumatran, a.k.a. the hairy rhino, is probably the most endangered of all rhinoceros species.
Antique Bison (bison bison antiquus)	None	Modern American Bison evolved from the now extinct Antique Bison species during the Pleistocene.
Steppe Bison (Bison priscus)	American Bison (bison bison)	The Steppe Bison became extinct in the Late Pleistocene, as it was replaced in Europe by the Wisent and in America by the American Bison. There are no wild ranging bison in California today.
Shrub Ox (Euceratherium collinum)	Musk Oxen (Ovibos moschatus)	The extinct Scrub oxen was larger than the musk oxen but slightly smaller than the bison. With similar bone structures, they are believed to be closely related to the musk oxen. The goal would be to establish a genetically altered musk oxen that can thrive in California’s Mediterranean clime.
Pronghorn (Antilocapra americana)	Same	Exists in area. Modern pronghorn is the only survivor of a number of Pleistocene pronghorn species.
Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis )	Desert Bighorn subspecies (Ovis canadensis nelsoni)	This subspecies would appear better adapted for this location. Desert subspecies somewhat smaller and has flatter, wider-spreading horns.
Yesterday's Camel (Camelops hesternus)	Arabian Camel (Camelus dromedaries)	The extinct Yesterday’s Camel had legs about 20% longer than modern species, but probably looked similar.
Llama (Hemiauchenia blancoensis) & (Hemiauchenia macrocephala)	Guanaco (Lama guanicoe) & Vicuna (Vicugna vicugna)	The two Pleistocene species are extinct. There are four living species of new world or South American camelidae: the llama, alpaca, guanaco, and vicuna. They are usually classified as different species despite the fact they can interbreed and bear fertile offspring. The Guanaco (Lama guanicoe) (an endangered species) is an elegant, fine-boned lamoid animal.
Elk or Wapiti (Cervus elaphus)	Same	Pleisocene remains found back more than 1 million years. North American elk are divided into five remaining subspecies of the red deer (Cervus elaphus). Tule elk subspecies (cervus elaphus nannodes) is currently recovering (from a small Central Valley remnant) in a number of herds throughout California.
Mountain Deer (Navahoceros fricki)	Thorold's Deer (Cervus albirostris)	The now extinct mountain deer was intermediate in size between the elk and mule deer. Possible substitute would be an endangered deer species of this size range that could thrive in the California clime. Cervus albirostris inhabit the high altitude rhododendron and coniferous forests and alpine meadows of the Tibetan Plateau. However, they have been successfully raised in many habitats in China.
Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemionus)	Same	Exists in area.
Flat-headed Peccary (Platygonus compressus)	Collared Peccary (Tayassu tajacu) "javelina"	The extinct flat-headed peccary was about the size of the European wild boar. The collared peccary took over the range of the flat headed in the southwest. Predators of the collared peccary include the mountain lion, jaguar, ocelot, bobcat, and coyote.
Ground Sloth	2 or 3 toed Tree Sloths	Introduction of a modern ground sloth to this wilderness would require some genetic engineering of the modern tree sloth. Might be possible within 200 years, but the benefit to the ecosystem is uncertain.