Address: 16019 Maricopa Highway (Highway 166) south of Bakersfield, CA View Map. Preserve hours: 7 AM to 4 PM. Amenities include Visitor Center, picnic areas, free camping, hiking trails for bird watching and wildlife viewing, seasonal wildflowers. 

Wind Wolves Preserve is in an ecologically unique region where the Transverse Ranges, Coast Ranges, Sierra Nevada, western Mojave Desert and San Joaquin Valley influences converge. Due to elevation ranges from 640 to 6,005 feet, the Preserve has an impressive array of landforms and habitats that serve as a critical landscape linkage and wildlife corridor between the Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada.

On the San Joaquin Valley floor, the Preserve is a 30-square-mile veritable sea of grasslands with remnant stands of saltbush. Rolling grasslands rise from the valley floor, transitioning into classic California blue oak and valley oak savanna with extensive riparian wetlands. The oak savanna ascends into juniper and pinyon forests that vault into stands of ponderosa pine and big cone spruce. The Conservancy’s restoration of hundreds of acres of wetlands has recruited over 5,000 nesting pairs of the endangered Tricolored Blackbird.