Good morning. It's Monday, May 6. I'm Alex Wigglesworth, an environment reporter for The Times. Here's what you need to know to start your day.
A snake wrangler's view of gentrification in the California desert
When I first reached out to Danielle Wall, I was hoping to learn about rattlesnakes. The snake wrangler has become a celebrity in California's high desert, and I wanted to tag along on some calls and check out her work.
But it turns out that her job is enlightening not just about rattlers but also their shrinking habitat and the humans who have been shaking it up.
The communities surrounding Joshua Tree National Park have been rocked by transformative changes since the COVID-19 pandemic sent hordes of city dwellers into more isolated areas. (Full disclosure: I was one of them, exchanging my Inglewood one-bedroom for a 7.5-acre spread for roughly the same monthly price.)
Some, like me, became full-time residents; others flipped properties or converted them to vacation rentals. Home prices skyrocketed.
As someone who humanely relocates rattlesnakes that people find on their properties, Wall has seen these shifts from a unique vantage point. I realized this as I followed her on her eighth call of the day, to yet another home that was being renovated.
Rattlesnake wrangler Danielle Wall grabs a Mojave rattlesnake from a container to return it to its natural habitat. (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Just look at Landers, where Wall lives. Between 2020 and 2022, the unincorporated community north of Yucca Valley — historically known as a meeting spot for UFO enthusiasts — saw the biggest jump in typical home values of anywhere in California, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. It was followed by the nearby towns of Joshua Tree and Twentynine Palms.
There were, of course, beneficiaries. For instance, Wall sold her home for a profit, using the proceeds to purchase her great-grandparents' larger property. That investment has essentially underwritten her snake-wrangling services. The donations she collects are not sufficient to cover her expenses.
But many locals were pushed out entirely, especially those who rented. The people who have replaced them sometimes appear to be better off financially and yet less willing to contribute to the community, said Wall, who for a time contemplated charging short-term rentals for her services before realizing it wasn't legal to do so.
She's unable to charge anyone since she's prohibited by state law from operating as a business and lacks nonprofit status. That means she relies on donations (which aren't tax deductible) to continue her work.
"Those ended up being the people who didn't want to even donate $5 for gas; who were rude, didn't care," said Wall from the front porch of her home, which sits on a dirt road that dead-ends into a semicircle of rocky mountains.
Wall's view is not limited to how demographic shifts have affected the human residents of this slice of the Mojave Desert. She's watched in real time as the same changes have wreaked havoc on the local wildlife — including an increase in rodent poison that's killing birds of prey, and an uptick in trash that's attracted more ravens, which feed on the young of desert tortoises. And, of course, humans' burning of fossil fuels has ratcheted up temperatures worldwide, making this infamously hot and dry place even hotter and drier.
All this raises hard questions. Is the presence of humans, and the changes they've recently wrought, hurting the very things that people seek to enjoy about the desert — its wildlife and beauty? And how can we be better neighbors?
The answer isn't that hard, Wall says: Simply focus on improving your little corner.
"I save what I can," she said, "and I tell people to save what they can."
You can read more about Wall in my Times subscriber exclusive story.
Today's top stories
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Today's great reads
A container ship waits in line to be unloaded at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in November 2020. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
We've been making quite a racket in our oceans. A new study shows how that's harming whales and other marine animals. While few land dwellers have given much thought to this shift in ambient marine noise, new research has modeled, for the first time, how the Industrial Revolution and the advent of commercial shipping have turned up the volume in the waters off Los Angeles. Hear the difference for yourself.
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For your downtime
Friends stop at Donut King in Gardena during an end-to-end, 28.5-mile walk on Western Avenue, the longest uninterrupted street in L.A. County, starting in Los Feliz heading south to San Pedro on April 28. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Going out
Staying in
And finally ... a great photo
Show us your favorite place in California! We're running low on submissions. Send us photos that scream California and we may feature them in an edition of Essential California.
(Lee Friedersdorf)
Today's great photo is from Lee Friedersdorf of Costa Mesa: the record-holding Goat Canyon Trestle in Anza Borrego State Park. Lee writes:
"It's the world's largest all-wood trestle. It was built in 1933 as part of the San Diego and Arizona Eastern Railway, after one of the many tunnels through the Carrizo Gorge collapsed."
Have a great day, from the Essential California team
Ryan Fonseca, reporter
Amy Hubbard, deputy editor, Fast Break
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