Tejon Ranch Natural History Facts

• The 269,000-acre Tejon Ranch is the largest contiguous private property in California.
• Tejon is the Spanish name for badger, a California species of concern that still occurs on the Ranch.
• It lies at the confluence of four major biogeographic regions (ecoregions). It is the only property in California that encompasses four major ecoregions.
• The Tejon Ranch is consider by conservation biologists as an evolutionary hotspot — a crucible of evolutionary innovation.
• The Ranch is critical to preserving landscape-scale habitat connectivity in the region and supports significant roadless areas (5,000+ acres) — increasingly rare in California.
• The Ranch supports at least 23 vegetation communities, many of them not well protected in public or private conservation areas, including some of the last remaining grasslands in the southern San Joaquin Valley. It also includes the ancient valley and blue oak woodlands, old growth conifer forests, numerous riparian and wetland habitats, Joshua tree woodlands, spectacular wildflower fields and outstanding native grasslands in the Antelope Valley.
• The Tejon Ranch agreement will help conserve three iconic California habitats that are not well protected in the state: valley oak woodland, blue oak woodland and grasslands.
• The Ranch provides habitat for a number of species listed as Threatened or Endangered, including California condor, San Joaquin kit fox, blunt-nosed leopard lizard, San Joaquin antelope squirrel, striped adobe lily, Bakersfield cactus, Valley elderberry longhorn beetle and Tehachapi slender salamander.
• Tejon Ranch meets nearly all of the Priority Criteria for Conservation established by the California Resources Agency.
• Portions of Tejon Ranch have been designated Important Bird Areas by Audubon California because of its importance as a foraging area for California Condor and the large number of Purple Martins nesting in the ranch’s oak woodlands.
• Tejon Ranch has one-third of California’s oak species on its lands and supports extensive oak woodlands and oak forests, including some of the largest individual oaks in California.
• Some of California’s early biological exploration was conducted on the Tejon Ranch by John Xantus from 1857 to 1859; he used Fort Tejon as his base. Thus the Ranch played a historic role in our understanding of the natural resources of the western U.S.
• The Ranch provides important migratory and wintering habitat for numerous bird species, including raptors such as Golden Eagle, Swainson’s Hawks, grassland birds like Long-billed Curlew and Mountain Plover, and numerous grassland species.
• Tejon Ranch is characterized by intact habitats and undisturbed watersheds, which provide natural functioning ecological processes that are increasingly rare.