“The complex life cycle of California Tiger Salamanders necessitates that each individual use a mixture of habitats.” (California Tiger Salamander, 2012) The California Tiger Salamander habituates grasslands, oak woodland space, vernal pools, and wetlands. Critical habitat areas designated for the California Tiger Salamander protect these ecosystems and the plants and animals within them that can be found nowhere else in the world. Vernal pools and wetlands are more important to the

economy than you may think. Firstly, they filter and purify stream water,

removing excess nutrients from water, thus improving our drinking water quality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      By saving the California Tiger Salamander, we are also protecting the

wetland ecosystem. A wetland in South Carolina removes the same quantity of pollutants from a watershed of what a $5 million treatment plant would remove (Economic Benefits of Wetlands, 2006). As writer Kassie Siegel from The Press Democrat wrote in 2003, “It is cheaper and easier to protect wetlands and their ecosystem functions than to destroy them and attempt to fix water quality problems after the fact with technology.” Wetlands also help mitigate the effects of flood. Not that California is at a high risk of flooding from rain anytime soon, but in the past flooding has detrimentally affected citizens in central California. The average wetland can store one million gallons of water (Economic Benefits of Wetlands, 2006). In the United States, a major reason the effects of flood have worsened in recent years is because many wetlands have been drained or cemented over to accommodate for more development. We must do whatever we can to save what little wetland habitat we have leftーfor our children, our grandchildren, and for the animals. Furthermore, from an economic standpoint, it is clear that preserving wetland habitat is the most pragmatic and rational option.