Compiled by
Robert
'Roy' J. van de Hoek, Field Biologist
Point Dume Nature Bus Guide & California State Parks Volunteer
(310) 456-5604
Dedicated to Harry, Allan, Jim, Kathryn, Curt & Sharon: Herpetology Afficionados
At Point Dume, the Legless Lizard is still hanging on to a precarious existence, but it is tenuous, make no mistake about it. Why, you might ask. The size of the Natural Preserve is small, fragmented by trails crisscrossing it, iceweed (iceplant) invasion, dogs, and just plain too many people. Regionally, Point Dume is the last best hope for the Legless Lizard in Los Angeles County. Elsewhere in Los Angeles, such as at Ballona, the small population on the small dune fragment is on private property, where there are horrific management problems, such as volunteers planting "out-of-place" willows and other large shrubs on the Sand Dune, sanctioned by the developers pseudo-environmental group called "Friends of Ballona Wetlands." Also, the Ballona Sand Dunes are small at only about 8 acres and the Developers want to develop a parking area, Greenhouse, and artificial wetland on part of the sand dune.
Similarly, the Legless Lizard in the El Segundo Dunes at LAX Airport, are under threat from jet fuel exhaust, noise, threat of a golf course, planting "out-of-place" palms, and other non-native invasive alien weeds. Elsewhere, the Legless Lizard that would have lived at Malibu Lagoon's dune sands and Topanga Lagoon's dune sands are currently eliminated by human impacts that placed fill-dirt and homes on top of the sand dunes. In addition, at both Malibu and Topanga, the LA County Beaches and Harbors Department, under Supervisor Zev Yaroslovsky, has ruined the beach, dune, and coastal strand environment for the California Legless Lizard. If the beach were owned by California State Parks, as it properly should be, there would be hope for recovering the California Legless Lizard to those two Wetland Ecosystem's sand dunes. Similarly, at Zuma Beach, where a real stronghold for Legless Lizard once occurred, the Beaches & Harbors Department again, under "Zev Yaroslovsky" has wiped out the Legless Lizard and its host plant of Ambrosia-Beach Bur. As well, many other species were impacted by Zev's Department of Beaches and Harbors. A few fenced off areas on Zuma Beach would go a long way, as would the discontinuation of raking the beach each morning, which pollutes the beach with dripping oil pollution of the bulldozers and the noise pollution and light pollution of dozers in the predawn hours. Supposedly, the raking dozers collect the trash of the beach, but I have seen the dozers bury the trash and only break the plastic into smaller pieces. Also, the trash cans should be emptied at the end of the day. These are good solutions for the beaches, for people, for taxpayers, and for the Legless Lizard. There is a real waste of taxpayer money going on, while simultaneously ruining the environment. It is something, we were hoping the 21st Century and progress would solve. However, politicians and status quo government, won't let go of archaic management practices. Zev, step up to the plate, hit a homerun, and remove the raking bulldozers from Zuma County Beach. Better yet, sell Zuma County Beach to California State Parks! Since LA County Government's budget is in the red, bring some much needed revenue in by selling the Beach to the best caretaker/steward of beaches in the State of California, California State Parks of course. And now back to some natural history of the Legless Lizard and away from politics.
As you might have guessed by now, the Legless Lizard requires a sand dune "beachy" type of habitat to survive. Legs are useless in sand for burrowing, so it lost its legs over time, so that now it resembles a snake, but only superficially. The sandy soil environment must be somewhat stablized with some vegetation on it, but not too much vegetation. The key plants for the Legless Lizard, where it can depend on finding insects in the root zone are Dune Lupine, Dune Goldenbush, and Beach Bur, Ambrosia chamissonis, as shown at the top of the web page. By the way, the photograph shows the dark-black form which occurs in the Monterey region, rather than the "Silvery" Legless Lizard of Point Dume and elsewhere in southern California.
I also have some preliminary findings that the presence of Pocket Gopher with their recurrent soil "farming" helps the Legless Lizard in its habitat needs. It appears that the Gopher "burrowed" soils provide habitat for more insects, which the Legless Lizard preys upon. Thus, the Pocket Gopher is a "keystone species" at Point Dume, helping insects, Legless Lizards and native plants by gently aerating and "micro-tilling" the soil. In fact, numerous studies show that there are more kind of native wildflowers on gopher "soiled" habitat than in non-gopher inhabited areas. By the way, there are 17 kinds of hawks, owls, falcons, mammals, and snakes that prey on Gophers. At Point Dume, Gopher Snake and Striped Racer Snake, dart into gopher holes when disturbed and seeking prey. On one occasion, in June 2001, I caught a glimpse of the head Striped Racer peering out at the world from a gopher hole, which on noticing my presence, retreated back down into the gopher burrow. Do Striped Racer prey on Legless Lizard? Probably! Do they hunt them down in gopher burrows? Probably! So many questions, and so much natural history searching to do. Many lifetimes needed to learn about the our world and our place on Earth.
There is so much more to tell you about the California Legless Lizard, and I have written a 17 page Natural History report on the Legless Lizard, of which I will put further excerpts from here on the web page in the future.