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FoLAR commissioned artist Brett Goldstone
to make these gates for Rattlesnake park in time for Earth Day,
1999.
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The Los Angeles River Visitor Center is
an exhibit hall that celebrates the natural river where reeds, willows,
mulefat and native riparian plants have returned. This section of the
river has concrete walls and a soft bottom. Native and non-native trees
grow in the soft bottom of the channel. Some of the riparian plants
along the Elysian Valley section of the river are the California sycamore,
the arroyo willow, and the western cottonwood. This section of the river
provides a convenient fly way for many seasonal birds. Mallards, teals
and coots nest on the islands of rushes, reeds, willows, and grasses.
Here great blue herons, hooded mergansers, kingfishers and ospreys rest
and feast on the crayfish and fish within the river. Many fish thrive
in the soft bottom of the river, but few are native. Before the channelization
of the river, steelhead trout were common. Mammals live and forage along
the river, but most are urbanized predators such as coyotes, skunks,
raccoons, opossums and rodents. Insects also are drawn to the river.
Blue damselflies, which are related to dragonflies, buckeye and western
tiger swallowtail butterflies can be seen along the river.
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