Habitat: Mostly the Mojave Desert, including Joshua Tree National Park and Mojave National Preserve.
Challenges: Lost habitat from military base expansions, solar plants and other development. Upper respiratory disease. Increasing populations of ravens prey on tortoise eggs and hatchlings.
Habitat: Open grassland and coastal sage scrub in Western Riverside County and parts of San Diego County.
Challenges: Habitat loss from the development of housing tracts and shopping centers.
Habitat: Sand dune areas of Colton, Rialto and Jurupa Valley.
Challenges: Habitat loss from mostly industrial development.
Habitat: north-central San Diego County, near Tecate, Mexico, and in small pockets of land on the outskirts of Temecula, Murrieta and Anza in southwestern Riverside County.
Challenges: Habitat loss from mostly residential development.
Habitat: the coastal sage scrub that once stretched from Ventura County to northern Baja California.
Challenges: Loss of habitat development and urban expansion.
Habitat: This small, gray songbird nests in lower shrubs found near rivers, creeks and other waterways.
Challenges: Loss of habitat from flood control projects. Predation from domestic cats, and an increase in population of cow birds. The cow birds lay eggs in the vireo nests, and the vireos unknowingly raise young cow birds as their own.
Habitat: The fish lives in the Santa Ana River between the Rialto Channel in Colton and the Mission Avenue bridge in Riverside. It also lives in the San Gabriel River and Big Tujunga Creek, both in Los Angeles County.
Challenges: Loss of 95 percent of historic range. Hurt by urban pollution, water diversion and the replacement of natural gravel creek beds with concrete flood-control channels.
Habitat: Along the coastline of Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties. One stronghold: Dana Point headlands.
Challenges: Loss of habitat to urban development and agricultural use, brush clearances for fire protection, and domestic cat predation.