Qualla: The Last Lakes in the Valley

The Last Lakes in the Valley: Introduction

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Amadscientist, CC BY-SA 3.0. The call of the greater sandhill crane carries a long way over flat water, and in winter it carries across Stone Lakes with a clarity that seems impossible this close to a state capital. Ten miles south of downtown Sacramento, wedged between the city of Elk Grove and the agricultural flatlands of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a patchwork of seasonal wetlands, permanent lakes, riparian forest, and native grasslands holds on as one of the last wild landscapes in California's Central Valley. The Plains Miwok once camped and fished along these shores. A Sacramento merchant named Rockwell Stone owned about a thousand acres here in the mid-1800s, and his family held the land until 1891. Today the refuge that bears his name protects something the Central Valley has almost entirely lost: freshwater lakes in their natural state.

Image: Amadscientist | CC BY-SA 3.0

The Last Lakes in the Valley: Refuge Number 505

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pacific Southwest Region USFWS from Sacramento, US, Public domain. By the early 1970s, the lakes and surrounding wetlands were under serious threat from Sacramento's outward creep. The State of California and Sacramento County purchased roughly 2,600 acres, turning the land over to their park departments. But it took two more decades of advocacy...

Image: Pacific Southwest Region USFWS from Sacramento, US | Public domain

The Last Lakes in the Valley: Wings on the Flyway

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pacific Southwest Region USFWS from Sacramento, US, Public domain. More than two hundred species of birds use Stone Lakes across the year, drawn by a mosaic of habitats that mirrors what the Central Valley once looked like before ninety-five percent of its wetlands were drained for agriculture. The refuge sits squarely on the Pacific Flyway, the...

Image: Pacific Southwest Region USFWS from Sacramento, US | Public domain

The Last Lakes in the Valley: A Sanctuary for the Struggling

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pacific Southwest Region USFWS from Sacramento, US, Public domain. Several species that teeter on the edge of survival find critical habitat here. The valley elderberry longhorn beetle, a federally threatened insect that depends on the blue elderberry shrub, benefits from the refuge's riparian corridors. Swainson's hawks, which migrate from Arge...

Image: Pacific Southwest Region USFWS from Sacramento, US | Public domain

The Last Lakes in the Valley: Ten Miles from the Capitol Dome

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ian Howard, CC BY 2.5. What makes Stone Lakes remarkable is not just what lives here but where it exists. This is an urban refuge in every sense, a wild place whose northern boundary nearly touches the subdivisions and strip malls of Sacramento's southern suburbs. Visitor numbers have climbed steadily ...

Image: Ian Howard | CC BY 2.5