Walker Ridge, though not as colorful as the valley itself, is another botanical gem, home to a number of endemics. An ocean of tidy tips. Local farmers have contributed to the preservation of Bear Valley, the site of one of the world's most splendid wildflower displays. A recent attempt to turn Bear Valley into a 20,000-person retirement complex was stymied by concerned citizens, and the American Land Conservancy is currently trying to purchase Bear Valley from its current owners so it can be transferred to a public agency that will protect it in perpetuity. Ninety species of neotropical migrant birds, displaced from once-wild rivers in the Central Valley, use the North and Middle Fork canyons during their international journeys.
Spotted owls depend on the canyons each fall as they migrate to lower elevations.
Plants on serpentine soils support critical populations of our state insect, the California dogface butterfly, plus rare Sierran denizens like the great copper butterfly and Lindsey's skipper and Wright's skipper butterflies. Though the persistent threat of Auburn Dam, which would inundate 25 miles along each of these river forks, was suppressed again last year, those who desire additional water supplies and flood control in the Sacramento Valley will likely bring the plan back to the table. See for yourself, on foot or from a raft or kayak, what would disappear if the dam were built. In the winter and spring, when runoff from rain or snowmelt combined with high tides to flood the islands, a vast, shallow inland sea formed. Levee building, river control, and the agriculture they allowed began transforming the delta in the mid-1800s, and today almost nothing remains of the 100 square miles of riparian and marsh habitat.