Mojave National Preserve

visit the mojave national preserve and you might think you've traveled back a hundred years or more with its old wagon trails indian rock art ancient geologic formations and vast vistas mojave get you thinking about time and space it's a great place for wally rogers an amateur star watcher from long beach thousands thousands borscht the stars are trillions of miles apart even in a closed and the telescope the stars look like grains of sand rogers is standing on the edge of the park in an old mining town called it in its amended carols home this is a special area i don't know what is that this year is that i mean i'll leave without trial for years we will one of the main attractions of the park

is largely dunes that blow when the sunlight mary whalen of the national park service says there's six hundred feet tall cover forty five square miles and built up over thousands of years part of material from a large desk that they sent around by fairly tall mountains that are too far away airflow gets trapped here it's that slows down and that's enough that the father to stand here at women's feet sand colored lizard scamper between the shrubs and clumps of grasses the park's mob bryson shows they were intended mary martin one that looks like it's doing pushups typical is pulling for its oval office and just a little emotion around about a standard is reflecting a lot of heat from the sun and make him work for her part both thirty three species of reptiles included desert tortoises lots of birds and many mammals like bighorn sheep and jack rabbits whalen says animals

benefit from the party over the last decade the national park foundation bought up the property and grazing rights of ranchers with the cattle on the vegetation is thriving and another spot whalen and martin show off a stream filled with soldiers and lavender and women a bright yellow tanker fleets overhead martin says the screen used to be tight miles away to wander cattle rancher to the pipes morning that a lot of the thunder to this spring vegetation the birds and insects and here in abundance only made her more water available bit better in urban of it there are multiple the park service is also discovered twelve new species of plants thousands of wild burros introduced by early miners and it began surveying mojave preserve as many archaeological

sites but some say not all the changes have been for the best ah jerry hill you're used to head the california desert district of the bureau of land management which controlled the area before it became a park san bernardino county supervisors are also not entirely happy that wall right of way on as much as twenty three hundred miles of roads in the park meantime environmentalists worry that the mojave preserve is severely underfunded irene car with the california wilderness coalition says the park has a staff of about thirty five people only four of them patrol rangers for its million and a half acres this is a huge area to manage with a wide diverse landscape some resources to protect only a small percentage of those are banned inventoried at this time i you have all kinds of endangered

plants species out here like the desert tortoise still mojave preserve hopes to finally open a visitor center inside the park this winter superintendent mary martin says people shouldn't expect to see the amenities found at many other parks you're not going to see a lot of development in this park there will not be a lot of signs around here you'll see hotels and gas station that needs to be a place we can go and you have your own sense of discovery the plan says martin is to keep mojave preserve pretty much as it is today in the mojave national preserve or society all at nine point three kpcc