Cuddeback Lake Preserve and Expansion is a pristine desert inholding within the West Mojave Desert, in San Bernardino County, California. It provides 640 acres of layered Habitat Management (HM) lands for desert tortoise, Mojave ground squirrel, and Waters of the State. The original Preserve project was the first Wildlands’ Preserve approved by California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Region 4 as mitigation for a wind project within the Tehachapi Wind Resource Area. The Preserve fulfilled the HM lands mitigation requirement associated with the Project’s CDFW Incidental Take Permits and Streambed Alteration Agreements.

The Preserve and Expansion lands were identified and secured based on the appropriateness to compensate for the loss of desert tortoise (Agassiz’ land tortoise, Gopherus agassizii, commonly known as Mojave Desert tortoise) habitat and populations connectivity as well as Mojave ground squirrel (Xerospermophilus mohavensis) habitat and population connectivity.

The habitats in the Preserve, as well as its connectivity to other protected landscapes, make it appropriate to mitigate for impacts to species and their habitats including desert, Mohave ground squirrel, and California jurisdictional waters and associated habitats including desert dry washes, swale networks, Mojave wash scrub, and Mojave creosote bush-white bursage scrub.