Los Angeled has plenty of urban wildlife, but people don’t usually associate the city with the term biodiversity. L.A. County park planner Clement Lau offers a book review on the a book on that subject, "Wild LA."
Los Angeles—both city and county—is one of the most biodiverse metropolitan areas in the country. This biodiversity is beautifully documented—both by text and imagery—in Wild LA, according to Clement Lau, a Los Angeles County park planner. The book is from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and its authors are Lila Higgins, Dr. Gregory B. Pauly, Dr. Jason G. Goldman, and Charles Hood. It describes where to go and what you’ll see there. The book also gives some historical information on the subject. Some of the facts that make Los Angeles unique in the country are:
- Los Angeles is the only city in the United States with a major mountain range running through it.
- L.A. County has the greatest difference between its lowest and highest elevations of any county in the United States, ranging from sea level to 10,064 feet at the top of Mount Baldy.
- L.A. is the birdiest county in the country, with more than 500 recorded species.
- L.A. is part of a biodiversity hotspot called the California Floristic Province, which stretches from southern Oregon to Baja California and includes most of California except the deserts.
- L.A. sits in the middle of 4,000-mile bird migration "highway" in the sky, which is used by at least a billion birds annually.
For more details about the book, see the source article.
Read the full story: Book Review: Wild LA
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