The Salt Marshes of China Camp State Park are one of the healthiest, as well as the largest intact marshes remaining in the San Francisco Bay estuary. They are also a very important habitat for wildlife, including a number of endangered species, such as the Ridgway’s Rail, a flightless bird that feeds on small crustaceans and worms, and the Salt Harvest Mouse.
A wide range of waterfowl and shorebirds are also found in the wetlands, as it is a migratory stopover for numerous varieties in both winter and summer. Common Loons, Western Grebes, Marbled Godwits, Northern Pintails are just some of the species seen.
The marshes provide numerous benefits: they serve as a massive filter for water moving from the Sacramento Delta into the Pacific Ocean, reduce erosion and runoff, and are natural nurseries for fish. The mudflats also sequester carbon, thus mitigating climate change.
Although salt marshes were once abundant in the San Francisco Bay, many have been lost, casualties of development. This makes the China Camp Salt Marshes even more environmentally important. The current road through China Camp impacts their ecological integrity by impeding the watershed flow from the uplands into the marshes, as well as the tidal flow moving inland.
The current China Road adaptation plan, an initiative with a broad stakeholder base and spearheaded by SF Bay NERR (National Estuarine Research Reserve), incorporates a design to correct this and restore the natural exchange of water between the uplands and salt marshes. Additional information on the adaptation plan are in the link above in the Disaster Prep section of this website, as well as in a post on the the China Camp Road grant.