Antelope Valley - Flora and Fauna

Flora and Fauna

The Antelope Valley is home to a wide range of plants and animals. It is home to hundreds of plants like the California Juniper, Joshua tree, California Scrub Oak, Creosote, and the California poppy. Winter brings much-needed rain which slowly penetrates the area's dry ground, bringing up native grasses and wildflowers. Poppy season depends completely on the precipitation, but a good bloom can be killed off by the unusual weather in the late winter and early spring months. Snow is not unusual for the Antelope Valley in spring, because it is often the most unstable weather the valley receives. The Antelope Valley gets its name from its history of pronghorn grazing in large numbers. In 1882-85, the valley lost 30,000 head of antelope, almost half of the antelope for which it was named. Unusually heavy snows in both the mountains and the valley floor drove the antelope toward their normal feeding grounds in the eastern part of the valley. Since they would not cross the railroad tracks, many of them starved to death. The remainder of these pronghorn were hunted for their fur by settlers. Once abundant, they either died off or migrated into the Central Valley. A drought in the early 1900s caused a scarcity in bunch grass, their main food source. Now the sighting of a pronghorn is rare, although there are still a small number in the western portion of the valley. American black bear are resident in the foothill and mountain portions of the Antelope Valley. Sightings are rare down in the valley itself, however they do occur.